Fermentive production of isobutanol using highly active ketol-acid reductoisomerase enzymes

ABSTRACT

Methods for the fermentative production of isobutanol is provided by the fermentative growth of a recombinant microorganism expressing a highly active ketol-acid reductoisomerase enzyme in addition to other enzymes required for conversion of glucose to isobutanol.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The invention relates to the field of industrial microbiology and production of alcohols. More specifically, isobutanol is produced via industrial fermentation of a recombinant microorganism using special ketol-acid reductoisomerase (KARI) enzymes with high turnover numbers. This invention also relates to methods for discovering highly active KARI enzymes from natural microorganisms.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Butanol is an important industrial chemical, useful as a fuel additive, as a feedstock chemical in the plastics industry, and as a foodgrade extractant in the food and flavor industry. Each year 10 to 12 billion pounds of butanol are produced by petrochemical means and the need for this commodity chemical will likely increase.

Methods for the chemical synthesis of isobutanol are known, such as oxo synthesis, catalytic hydrogenation of carbon monoxide (Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry, 6^(th) edition, 2003, Wiley-VCHVerlag GmbH and Co., Weinheim, Germany, Vol. 5, pp. 716-719) and Guerbet condensation of methanol with n-propanol (Carlini et al., J. Molec. Catal. A:Chem. 220, 215-220, 2004). These processes use starting materials derived from petrochemicals and are generally expensive and are not environmentally friendly. The production of isobutanol from plant-derived raw materials would minimize green house gas emissions and would represent an advance in the art.

Isobutanol is produced biologically as a by-product of yeast fermentation. It is a component of “fusel oil” that forms as a result of incomplete metabolism of amino acids by this group of fungi. Isobutanol is specifically produced from catabolism of L-valine. After the amine group of L-valine is harvested as a nitrogen source, the resulting α-keto acid is decarboxylated and reduced to isobutanol by enzymes of the so-called Ehrlich pathway (Dickinson et al., J. Biol. Chem. 273, 25752-25756, 1998). Yields of fusel oil and/or its components achieved during beverage fermentation are typically low. For example, the concentration of isobutanol produced in beer fermentation is reported to be less than 16 parts per million (Garcia et al., Process Biochemistry 29, 303-309, 1994). Addition of exogenous L-valine to the fermentation increases the yield of isobutanol, as described by Dickinson et al., supra, wherein it is reported that a yield of isobutanol of 3 g/L is obtained by providing L-valine at a concentration of 20 g/L in the fermentation. In addition, production of n-propanol, isobutanol and isoamylalcohol has been shown by calcium alginate immobilized cells of Zymomonas mobilis. A 10% glucose-containing medium supplemented with either L-Leu, L-Ile, L-Val, alpha-ketoisocaproic acid (alpha-KCA), alpha-ketobutyric acid (alpha-KBA) or alpha-ketoisovaleric acid (alpha-KVA) was used (Oaxaca, et al., Acta Biotechnol.; 11, 523-532, 1991). Alpha-KCA increased isobutanol levels. The amino acids also gave corresponding alcohols, but to a lesser degree than the keto acids. An increase in the yield of C3-C5 alcohols from carbohydrates was shown when amino acids leucine, isoleucine, and/or valine were added to the growth medium as the nitrogen source (WO 2005040392).

While methods described above indicate the potential of isobutanol production via biological means these methods are cost prohibitive for industrial scale isobutanol production. The biosynthesis of isobutanol directly from sugars would be economically viable and would represent an advance in the art. However, this production is severely hampered by the slow ketol-acid reductoisomerase (KARI) enzyme that catalyzes the second step in the iso-butanol pathway that converts acetolactate to dihydroxy-isovalerate. Because this enzyme is already expressed at high levels (S. Epelbaum et al. J. Bacteriol., 180, 4056-4067, 1998), there is a need to increase the activity of KARI, without increasing the amount of protein, i.e. increase the enzyme specific activity.

Applicants have solved the stated problem through the discovery of a KARI enzyme having a high specific activity which can be used to enhance the biological production of isobutanol.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The invention relates to recombinant organisms expressing highly active KARI enzymes. The engineered microorganism will have high levels of the short form of KARI enzyme which possesses significantly higher specific activity (6-8 times of the KARI enzyme in E. coli) and may be used for the commercial production of isobutanol. Accordingly, in one embodiment the invention provides a method for conversion of acetolactate to dihydroxy-isovalerate comprising:

-   -   a) providing a microbial host cell comprising genetic construct         encoding a polypeptide having ketol-acid reductoisomerase         specific activity greater than that of the specific activity of         an E. coli ketol-acid reductoisomerase; and     -   b) contacting the host cell of (a) with acetolactate wherein         2,3-dihydroxy-isovalerate is produced.         In a preferred embodiment the genetic construct encodes a         polypeptide having ketol-acid reductoisomerase specific activity         of greater than 1.1 μmoles/min/mg based on purified protein as         measured by the NADPH consumption assay, run under the following         conditions:     -   a) pH of about 7.5;     -   b) a temperature of about 22.5° C.; and     -   c) greater than about 10 mM potassium.         In another embodiment the invention provides a method for the         production of isobutanol comprising:     -   a) providing a recombinant microbial host cell comprising the         following genetic constructs:         -   1) at least one genetic construct encoding an acetolactate             synthase enzyme of the conversion of pyruvate to             acetolactate (pathway step a);         -   2) at least one genetic construct encoding a ketol-acid             reductoisomerase enzyme specific activity of greater than             1.1 μmoles/min/mg based on purified protein as measured by             the NADPH consumption assay, run under the following             conditions:             -   i) pH of about 7.5;             -   ii) a temperature of about 22.5° C.; and             -   iii) greater than about 10 mM potassium for the                 conversion of (S)-acetolactate to                 2,3-dihydroxyisovalerate, (pathway step b);         -   3) at least one genetic construct encoding an acetohydroxy             acid dehydratase for the conversion of             2,3-dihydroxyisovalerate to α-ketoisovalerate, (pathway step             c);         -   4) at least one genetic construct encoding a branched-chain             keto acid decarboxylase, of the conversion of             α-ketoisovalerate to isobutyraldehyde, (pathway step d);         -   5) at least one genetic construct encoding a branched-chain             alcohol dehydrogenase for the conversion of isobutyraldehyde             to isobutanol (pathway step e); and     -   b) growing the host cell of (a) under conditions where         iso-butanol is produced.

In another embodiment the invention provides a recombinant host cell comprising a ketol-acid reductoisomerase enzyme having a specific activity greater than the specific activity of an E. coli ketol-acid reductoisomerase.

In another embodiment the invention provides a method for the identification and isolation of a genetic construct encoding a ketol-acid reductoisomerase enzyme having a specific activity of greater than 1.1 μmoles/min/mg based on purified protein as measured by the NADPH consumption assay, run under the following conditions:

-   -   i) pH of about 7.5;     -   ii) a temperature of about 22.5° C.; and     -   iii) greater than about 10 mM potassium;         comprising the steps of:     -   a) identifying bacterial species having a doubling time shorter         than that of E. coli when grown in M9 minimal medium;     -   b) screening the bacterial species of (a) for ketol-acid         reductoisomerase activity to identify active bacterial species;     -   c) probing the genomic DNA of the active bacterial species         of (b) with nucleic acid sequences having homology to genetic         constructs known to encode a ketol-acid reductoisomerase to         identify and isolate genetic constructs encoding a ketol-acid         reductoisomerase from said active bacterial species; and     -   d) amplifying and expressing the genetic constructs encoding a         ketol-acid reductoisomerase from said active bacterial species;         and     -   e) screening the expressed genetic constructs of step (d) for         those having a specific activity of greater than 1.1         μmoles/min/mg based on purified protein as measured by the NADPH         consumption assay, run under the following conditions:         -   i) pH of about 7.5;         -   ii) a temperature of about 22.5° C.; and         -   iii) greater than about 10 mM potassium.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES AND SEQUENCES OF THE INVENTION

The invention can be more fully understood from the following detailed description, the FIGURE, and the accompanying sequence descriptions, which form part of this application.

FIG. 1 shows four different isobutanol biosynthetic pathways. The steps labeled “a”, “b”, “c”, “d”, “e”, “f”, “g”, “h”, “i”, “j” and “k” represent the substrate to product conversions described below.

The following sequences conform with 37 C.F.R. 1.821-1.825 (“Requirements for Patent Applications Containing Nucleotide Sequences and/or Amino Acid Sequence Disclosures—the Sequence Rules”) and are consistent with World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Standard ST.25 (1998) and the sequence listing requirements of the EPO and PCT (Rules 5.2 and 49.5(a-bis), and Section 208 and Annex C of the Administrative Instructions). The symbols and format used for nucleotide and amino acid sequence data comply with the rules set forth in 37 C.F.R. §1.822.

TABLE 1 Summary of Gene and Protein SEQ ID Numbers of the Preferred Isobutanol Pathway SEQ ID NO: SEQ ID Nucleic NO: Description acid Peptide Klebsiella pneumoniae budB 1 2 (acetolactate synthase) E. coli ilvC (acetohydroxy acid 3 4 reductoisomerase) E. coli ilvD (acetohydroxy acid 5 6 dehydratase) Lactococcus lactis kivD (branched- 7 8 chain α-keto acid decarboxylase), codon optimized E. coli yqhD (branched-chain alcohol 9 10 dehydrogenase)

SEQ ID NOs:11-22 are the nucleotide sequences of oligonucleotide primers used to generate the constructs in Example 1.

SEQ ID NOs: 23-30 are the nucleotide sequences of oligonucleotide primers used to generate the constructs in Example 2.

SEQ ID Nos. 11 and 12 are the DNA sequences of the primers used in Example 1 for PCR amplification of ilvC gene

SEQ ID No. 13 is the forward DNA sequence for the primer used to clone the KARI gene in the pBAD vector in E. coli

SEQ ID No. 14 is the reverse DNA sequence for the primer used to clone the KARI gene in the pBAD vector in E. coli

SEQ ID No. 15 is the forward DNA sequence for ilvC-trc-SacI-F used to amplify the KARI gene

SEQ ID No. 16 is the reverse DNA sequence for ilvC-trc-HindIII-R used to amplify the KARI gene

SEQ ID Nos. 17 to 22 are the nucleotide sequences of oligonucleotide primers used to confirm the presence of E. coli ilvC insert by SacI digestion and DNA sequencing

SEQ ID No. 17-ilvC-trc-F3

SEQ ID No. 18-ilvC-trc-F5

SEQ ID No. 19-ilvC-trc-R2

SEQ ID No. 20-ilvC-trc-R4

SEQ ID No. 21-pBAD-eF1

SEQ ID No. 22-PALPK-R1

SEQ ID Nos. 23 to 26 are the nucleotide sequences of oligonucleotide primers used in the forward and reverse directions to amplify the ilvC genes from the genomic DNA of Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PAO1) and Pseudomonas fluorescens (PF5) by PCR.

SEQ ID # 23—PAO1-C-F1

SEQ ID No. 24—PAO1-C-R1

SEQ ID No. 25—PF5-C-F1

SEQ ID No. 26—PF5-C-R1

SEQ ID No. 21, 22, 27 and 28 are the nucleotide sequences of oligonucleotide primers used to validate the DNA sequences of the positive clones containing the ilvC genes of Pseudomonas.

SEQ ID No. 27—PF5-S-F2

SEQ ID No. 28—PF5-S-R2

The following SEQ ID NO's correspond to the DNA sequences of the KARI genes used in this invention:

SEQ ID No. 29—E. coli K12-ilvC

SEQ ID No. 30—codon optimized KARI from Vibrio for E. coli expression

SEQ ID No. 31—Pseudomonas aeruginosa-PAO1-ilvC

SEQ ID No. 32—Pseudomonas fluorescens-PF5-ilvC

The following SEQ ID NO's are the amino acid sequences corresponding

SEQ ID NO's 29-32 respectively:

SEQ ID No. 33—E. coli K12-ilvC-[KARI from E. coli K12]

SEQ ID No. 34—KARI from Vibrio cholerae

SEQ ID No. 35—PAO1-ilvC (1 aa-338 aa)

SEQ ID No. 36—PF5-ilvC (1 aa-338aa)

SEQ ID No. 37 is the forward primer PAL-F1 SEQ ID No. 38 is the Reverse primer (PAL-R1) SEQ ID No. 39 is the Forward primer (PAL-EcoR1-F1) SEQ ID No. 40 is the Reverse primer (PAL-EcoR1-R1)

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to a method for conversion of acetolactate to 2,3-dihydroxy-isovalerate using microbial host cells containing a very active KARI enzyme. The 2,3-dihydroxy-isovalerate thus formed is further converted via steps shown in FIG. 1 to isobutanol. The invention also discloses methods to find faster KARI enzymes in their natural host microorganisms and molecular evolution of such enzymes for the purpose of further improving their catalytic activity.

The present invention meets a number of commercial and industrial needs. Butanol is an important industrial commodity chemical with a variety of applications, where its potential as a fuel or fuel additive is particularly significant. Although only a four-carbon alcohol, butanol has an energy content similar to that of gasoline and can be blended with any fossil fuel. Butanol is favored as a fuel or fuel additive as it yields only CO₂ and little or no SO_(x) or NO_(x) when burned in the standard internal combustion engine. Additionally butanol is less corrosive than ethanol, the most preferred fuel additive to date.

In addition to its utility as a biofuel or fuel additive, butanol has the potential of impacting hydrogen distribution problems in the emerging fuel cell industry. Fuel cells today are plagued by safety concerns associated with hydrogen transport and distribution. Butanol can be easily reformed for its hydrogen content and can be distributed through existing gas stations in the purity required for either fuel cells or vehicles.

The following definitions and abbreviations are to be used for the interpretation of the claims and the specification.

The term “invention” or “present invention” as used herein is meant to apply generally to all embodiments of the invention as described in the claims as presented or as later amended and supplemented, or in the specification.

The term “isobutanol biosynthetic pathway” refers to the enzymatic pathway to produce isobutanol. Preferred isobutanol biosynthetic pathways are illustrated in FIG. 1 and described herein.

The term “NADPH consumption assay” refers to an enzyme assay for the determination of the specific activity of the KARI enzyme, involving measuring the disappearance of the KARI cofactor, NADPH, from the enzyme reaction, as described in (Aulabaugh et al.; Biochemistry, 29, 2824-2830, 1990).

“KARI” is the abbreviation for the enzyme Ketol-acid reductoisomerase.

The term “Acetohydroxy acid isomeroreductase” and “Ketol-acid reductoisomerase” will be used interchangeably and refer the enzyme having the EC number, EC 1.1.1.86 (Enzyme Nomenclature 1992, Academic Press, San Diego). Ketol-acid reductoisomerase catalyzes the reaction of (S)-acetolactate to 2,3-dihydroxyisovalerate, as more fully described below. These enzymes are available from a number of sources, including, but not limited to E. coli GenBank Accession Number NC_(—)000913 REGION: 3955993.3957468, Vibrio cholerae GenBank Accession Number NC_(—)002505 REGION: 157441.158925, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, GenBank Accession Number NC _(—)002516 REGION: 5272455.5273471, and Pseudomonas fluorescens GenBank Accession Number NC_(—)004129 REGION: 6017379.6018395.

The term “acetolactate synthase” refers to an enzyme that catalyzes the conversion of pyruvate to acetolactate and CO₂. Acetolactatehas two, (R)- and (S)-stereoisomers, the enzyme prefers the (S)-isomer which is made by biological systems. Preferred acetolactate synthases are known by the EC number 2.2.1.6 9 (Enzyme Nomenclature 1992, Academic Press, San Diego). These enzymes are available from a number of sources, including, but not limited to, Bacillus subtilis (GenBank Nos: CAB15618, Z99122, NCBI (National Center for Biotechnology Information) amino acid sequence, NCBI nucleotide sequence, respectively), Klebsiella pneumoniae (GenBank Nos: AAA25079 (SEQ ID NO:2), M73842 (SEQ ID NO:1)), and Lactococcus lactis (GenBank Nos: AAA25161, L16975).

The term “acetohydroxy acid dehydratase” refers to an enzyme that catalyzes the conversion of 2,3-dihydroxyisovalerate to α-ketoisovalerate. Preferred acetohydroxy acid dehydratases are known by the EC number 4.2.1.9. These enzymes are available from a vast array of microorganisms, including, but not limited to, E. coli (GenBank Nos: YP_(—)026248 (SEQ ID NO:6), NC_(—)000913 (SEQ ID NO:5)), S. cerevisiae (GenBank Nos: NP_(—)012550, NC_(—)001142), M. maripaludis (GenBank Nos: CAF29874, BX957219), and B. subtilis (GenBank Nos: CAB14105, Z99115).

The term “branched-chain α-keto acid decarboxylase” refers to an enzyme that catalyzes the conversion of α-ketoisovalerate to isobutyraldehyde and CO₂. Preferred branched-chain α-keto acid decarboxylases are known by the EC number 4.1.1.72 and are available from a number of sources, including, but not limited to, Lactococcus lactis (GenBank Nos: AAS49166, AY548760; CAG34226 (SEQ ID NO:8), AJ746364, Salmonella typhimurium (GenBank Nos: NP_(—)461346, NC_(—)003197), and Clostridium acetobutylicum (GenBank Nos: NP_(—)149189, NC_(—)001988).

The term “branched-chain alcohol dehydrogenase” refers to an enzyme that catalyzes the conversion of isobutyraldehyde to isobutanol. Preferred branched-chain alcohol dehydrogenases are known by the EC number 1.1.1.265, but may also be classified under other alcohol dehydrogenases (specifically, EC 1.1.1.1 or 1.1.1.2). These enzymes utilize NADH (reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide) and/or NADPH as electron donor and are available from a number of sources, including, but not limited to, S. cerevisiae (GenBank Nos: NP_(—)010656, NC_(—)001136; NP_(—)014051, NC_(—)001145), E. coli (GenBank Nos: NP_(—)417-484 (SEQ ID NO:10), NC_(—)000913 (SEQ ID NO:9)), and C. acetobutylicum (GenBank Nos: NP_(—)349892, NC_(—)003030).

The term “branched-chain keto acid dehydrogenase” refers to an enzyme that catalyzes the conversion of α-ketoisovalerate to isobutyryl-CoA (isobutyryl-coenzyme A), using NAD+(nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide) as electron acceptor. Preferred branched-chain keto acid dehydrogenases are known by the EC number 1.2.4.4. These branched-chain keto acid dehydrogenases are comprised of four subunits and sequences from all subunits are available from a vast array of microorganisms, including, but not limited to, B. subtilis (GenBank Nos: CAB14336, Z99116; CAB14335, Z99116; CAB14334, Z99116; and CAB14337, Z99116) and Pseudomonas putida (GenBank Nos: AAA65614, M57613; AAA65615, M57613; AAA65617, M57613; and AAA65618, M57613).

The term “carbon substrate” or “fermentable carbon substrate” refers to a carbon source capable of being metabolized by host organisms of the present invention and particularly carbon sources selected from the group consisting of monosaccharides, oligosaccharides, polysaccharides, and one-carbon substrates or mixtures thereof.

The terms “k_(cat)” and “K_(m)” are known to those skilled in the art and are described in Enzyme Structure and Mechanism, 2nd ed. (Ferst; W.H. Freeman: NY, 1985; pp 98-120). The term “k_(cat)”, often called the “turnover number”, is defined as the maximum number of substrate molecules converted to products per active site per unit time, or the number of times the enzyme turns over per unit time. k_(cat)=V_(max)/[E], where [E] is the enzyme concentration (Ferst, supra). The terms “total turnover” and “total turnover number” are used herein to refer to the amount of product formed by the reaction of a KARI enzyme with substrate.

The term “catalytic efficiency” is defined as the k_(cat)/K_(M) of an enzyme. “Catalytic efficiency” is used to quantitate the specificity of an enzyme for a substrate.

The term “specific activity” means enzyme units/mg protein where an enzyme unit is defined as moles of product formed/minute under specified conditions of temperature, pH, [S], etc.

The term “slow” or “fast” when used in reference to an enzyme activity relates to the turnover number of the enzyme as compares with a standard.

The term “isolated nucleic acid molecule”, “isolated nucleic acid fragment” and “genetic construct” will be used interchangeably and will mean a polymer of RNA or DNA that is single- or double-stranded, optionally containing synthetic, non-natural or altered nucleotide bases. An isolated nucleic acid fragment in the form of a polymer of DNA may be comprised of one or more segments of cDNA, genomic DNA or synthetic DNA.

The term “Gene” refers to a nucleic acid fragment that is capable of being expressed as a specific protein, optionally including regulatory sequences preceding (5′ non-coding sequences) and following (3′ non-coding sequences) the coding sequence. “Native gene” refers to a gene as found in nature with its own regulatory sequences. “Chimeric gene” refers to any gene that is not a native gene, comprising regulatory and coding sequences that are not found together in nature. Accordingly, a chimeric gene may comprise regulatory sequences and coding sequences that are derived from different sources, or regulatory sequences and coding sequences derived from the same source, but arranged in a manner different than that found in nature. “Endogenous gene” refers to a native gene in its natural location in the genome of an organism. A “foreign” gene refers to a gene not normally found in the host organism, but that is introduced into the host organism by gene transfer. Foreign genes can comprise native genes inserted into a non-native organism, or chimeric genes. A “transgene” is a gene that has been introduced into the genome by a transformation procedure.

As used herein the term “Coding sequence” refers to a DNA sequence that codes for a specific amino acid sequence. “Suitable regulatory sequences” refer to nucleotide sequences located upstream (5′ non-coding sequences), within, or downstream (3′ non-coding sequences) of a coding sequence, and which influence the transcription, RNA processing or stability, or translation of the associated coding sequence. Regulatory sequences may include promoters, translation leader sequences, introns, polyadenylation recognition sequences, RNA processing site, effector binding site and stem-loop structure.

The term “Promoter” refers to a DNA sequence capable of controlling the expression of a coding sequence or functional RNA. In general, a coding sequence is located 3′ to a promoter sequence. Promoters may be derived in their entirety from a native gene, or be composed of different elements derived from different promoters found in nature, or even comprise synthetic DNA segments. It is understood by those skilled in the art that different promoters may direct the expression of a gene in different tissues or cell types, or at different stages of development, or in response to different environmental or physiological conditions. Promoters which cause a gene to be expressed in most cell types at most times are commonly referred to as “constitutive promoters”. It is further recognized that since in most cases the exact boundaries of regulatory sequences have not been completely defined, DNA fragments of different lengths may have identical promoter activity.

The term “operably linked” refers to the association of nucleic acid sequences on a single nucleic acid fragment so that the function of one is affected by the other. For example, a promoter is operably linked with a coding sequence when it is capable of effecting the expression of that coding sequence (i.e., that the coding sequence is under the transcriptional control of the promoter). Coding sequences can be operably linked to regulatory sequences in sense or antisense orientation.

The term “expression”, as used herein, refers to the transcription and stable accumulation of sense (mRNA) or antisense RNA derived from the nucleic acid fragment of the invention. Expression may also refer to translation of mRNA into a polypeptide.

As used herein the term “transformation” refers to the transfer of a nucleic acid fragment into the genome of a host organism, resulting in genetically stable inheritance. Host organisms containing the transformed nucleic acid fragments are referred to as “transgenic” or “recombinant” or “transformed” organisms.

The terms “plasmid”, “vector” and “cassette” refer to an extra chromosomal element often carrying genes which are not part of the central metabolism of the cell, and usually in the form of circular double-stranded DNA fragments. Such elements may be autonomously replicating sequences, genome integrating sequences, phage or nucleotide sequences, linear or circular, of a single- or double-stranded DNA or RNA, derived from any source, in which a number of nucleotide sequences have been joined or recombined into a unique construction which is capable of introducing a promoter fragment and DNA sequence for a selected gene product along with appropriate 3′ untranslated sequence into a cell. “Transformation cassette” refers to a specific vector containing a foreign gene and having elements in addition to the foreign gene that facilitates transformation of a particular host cell. “Expression cassette” refers to a specific vector containing a foreign gene and having elements in addition to the foreign gene that allow for enhanced expression of that gene in a foreign host.

As used herein the term “Codon degeneracy” refers to the nature in the genetic code permitting variation of the nucleotide sequence without effecting the amino acid sequence of an encoded polypeptide. The skilled artisan is well aware of the “codon-bias” exhibited by a specific host cell in usage of nucleotide codons to specify a given amino acid. Therefore, when synthesizing a gene for improved expression in a host cell, it is desirable to design the gene such that its frequency of codon usage approaches the frequency of preferred codon usage of the host cell.

The term “codon-optimized” as it refers to genes or coding regions of nucleic acid molecules for transformation of various hosts, refers to the alteration of codons in the gene or coding regions of the nucleic acid molecules to reflect the typical codon usage of the host organism without altering the polypeptide encoded by the DNA.

Standard recombinant DNA and molecular cloning techniques used here are well known in the art and are described by Sambrook et al. (Sambrook, Fritsch, and Maniatis, Molecular Cloning: A Laboratory Manual, Second Edition, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y., 1989) (hereinafter “Maniatis”); and by Silhavy et al. (Silhavy, et al., Experiments with Gene Fusions, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y., 1984); and by Ausubel, F. M. et al., (Ausubel, et al, Current Protocols in Molecular Biology, published by Greene Publishing Assoc. and Wiley-Interscience, 1987).

The present invention produces isobutanol from plant derived carbon sources, avoiding the negative environmental impact associated with standard petrochemical processes for butanol production. In one embodiment the present invention provides a method for identification of KARI enzymes with high catalytic efficiency which would eliminate it as the rate limiting step in the conversion of carbohydrates to isobutanol. The method comprises identification and suitable KARI enzymes and their mutagenesis using methods well known in the art to increase the enzyme's specific activity as described in detail below.

Keto Acid Reductoisomerase (KARI) Enzymes

Acetohydroxy acid isomeroreductase or Ketol-acid reductoisomerase (KARI; EC 1.1.1.86) catalyzes 2 steps in the biosynthesis of branched-chain amino acids and is a key enzyme in their biosynthesis. KARI is found in a variety of organisms and amino acid sequence comparisons across species have revealed that there are 2 types of this enzyme: a short form (class I) found in fungi and most bacteria, and a long form (class II) typical of plants.

The short form KARIs have typically between 330-340 amino acid residues. The long form KARI have about 490 amino acid residues. However, some bacteria such as Escherichia coli possess a long form, where the amino acid sequence differs appreciably from that found in plants. KARI is encoded by the ilvC gene and is an essential enzyme for growth of E. coli and other bacteria in a minimal medium. KARI uses NADPH as cofactor and requires divalent cation such as Mg⁺⁺ for its activity. In addition to utilizing acetolactate in the valine pathway, KARI also converts acetohydroxybutanoate to dihydroxymethylpentanoate in the isoleucine production pathway.

The crystal structure of the E. coli KARI enzyme at 2.6 Å resolution has been solved (Tyagi, et al., Protein Science, 14, 3089-3100, 2005). This enzyme consists of 2 domains, one with mixed α/β structure, which is similar to that found in other pyridine nucleotide-dependent dehydrogenases. The 2nd domain is mainly α-helical and shows strong evidence of internal duplication. Comparison of the active sites of KARI of E. coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and spinach showed that most residues in the active site of the enzyme occupy conserved positions. While the E. Coli KARI was crystallized as a tetramer, which is probably the likely biologically active unit, the P. aeruginosa KARI (Ahn, et al., J. Mol. Biol., 328, 505-515, 2003) formed a dodecamer, and the enzyme from spinach formed a dimer. Known KARIs are slow enzymes with the reported turnover number (k_(cat)) of 2 s⁻¹ (Aulabaugh et al.; Biochemistry, 29, 2824-2830, 1990) or 0.12 s⁻¹ (Rane et al., Arch. Biochem. Biophys. 338, 83-89, 1997) for acetolactate. Studies have shown that genetic control of isoleucine-valine biosynthesis in E. Coli is different than that in Ps. aeruginosa (Marinus, et al., Genetics, 63, 547-56, 1969).

Identification and Isolation of High Activity KARI Enzymes.

A review of organisms with higher doubling rates than E. coli was performed. Three microorganisms, Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PAO1), Pseudomonas fluorescens (PF5), and Vibrio cholerae (N16961), were identified which had faster doubling times than E. coli when grown in the M9 minimal medium. Genes encoding a KARI enzyme were isolated from each of these varieties and the encoded proteins were expressed and partially purified. The specific activity of the enzymes isolated from the high doubling rate organisms was compared against that of the E. coli. KARI, using the NADPH consumption assay method which measures the disappearance of the cofactor, NADPH, during the enzymatic conversion of acetolactate to α,β-dihydroxy-isovalerate at 340 nm. The activity is calculated using the molar extinction coefficient of 6220 M⁻¹ cm⁻¹ for NADPH and is reported as μmole of NADPH consumed per min per mg of total protein in cell extracts (see Aulabaugh and Schloss, Biochemistry, 29, 2824-2830, 1990)

It is an object of the present invention to provide a KARI enzyme having a specific activity of greater than 1.1 μmoles/min/mg KARI as measured using purified protein according to the NADPH consumption assay described herein. E. coli KARI is a slow enzyme and is essential in branch chain amino acid synthetic pathway. The gene that encodes KARI (ilvC) is turned off when cells grow in a rich medium but it is expressed at high levels (about 10% of the soluble proteins) when grown in a minimal medium (S. Epelbaum et al., supra).

The process of the selection of a suitable KARI enzyme involved two approaches. The first was to search for a novel KARI among natural diversity. Such a search involved isolating homologues to available enzymes broadly from other organisms, using techniques well-known in the art. This search was informed by hypotheses about which organisms are most likely to have suitable KARIs, based on the doubling time of the organism. A second approach involved creating and searching artificial diversity by construction of a strong expression vector, mutagenesis and evolution of the KARI coding sequence, and finally selection of variants with improved KARI activity.

Using the above methods KARI enzymes were isolated from Pseudomonas fluorescens (SEQ ID No. 35 [PAO1-ilvC] SEQ ID No. 36 [PF5-ilvC]) and Vibrio cholerae (SEQ ID No. 34) having a specific activities that were higher than that of the KARI enzyme isolated from E. coli (SEQ ID No. 33 [E. coli K12-ilvC]. Preferred in the present invention are KARI enzymes having specific activities of greater than about 1.1 μmoles/m in/mg, where specific activities, of about 5-40 μmoles/min/mg are particularly suitable. It is preferable if the specific activity of the KARI is measured using purified protein and incorporating a NADPH consumption assay (Aulabaugh, supra) run at between 20° C. and 25° C., where about 22.5° C. is preferred, at a pH of between 7.0 and 8.0, where a pH of about 7.5 is preferred, and in a buffer having at least about 10 mM potassium, where at least about 10 mM-to about 50 mM is suitable. Some of the specific enzymes useful in the invention are listed below in Table 2.

TABLE 2 KARI Enzymes of the Present Invention Gene GenBank citation E. coli K12 ilvC GenBank Accession Number NC_000913 REGION: 3955993 . . . 3957468 Codon optimized for E. coli expression GenBank Accession Number of KARI from Vibrio cholerae NC_002505 REGION: 157441 . . . 158925 Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1 ilvC GenBank Accession Number NC_002516 REGION: 5272455 . . . 5273471 Pseudomonas fluorescens PF5 ilvC GenBank Accession Number NC_004129 REGION: 6017379..6018395

The present invention is not limited to the specific Pseudomonas and Vibrio enzymes described herein. For example, these polypeptides may be used as the basis to find homologs having similar activity, or as templates for mutagenesis and protein evolution.

Isolation of KARI Homologs

The nucleic acid fragment of the instant invention may be used to isolate genes encoding homologous proteins from the same or other microbial species. Isolation of homologous KARI genes using sequence-dependent protocols is well known in the art. Examples of sequence-dependent protocols include, but are not limited to, methods of nucleic acid hybridization, and methods of DNA and RNA amplification as exemplified by various uses of nucleic acid amplification technologies, e.g. polymerase chain reaction (PCR) (Mullis et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,683,202), ligase chain reaction (LCR), (Tabor, et al., Proc. Acad. Sci. USA 82, 1074, 1985) or strand displacement amplification (SDA) (Walker, et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A., 89, 392, 1992).

For example, genes encoding similar proteins or polypeptides to those of the instant invention could be isolated directly by using all or a portion of the instant nucleic acid fragment as DNA hybridization probes to screen libraries from any desired bacteria using methodology well known to those skilled in the art. Specific oligonucleotide probes based upon the instant nucleic acid sequence can be designed and synthesized by methods known in the art (Maniatis, supra). Moreover, the entire sequence can be used directly to synthesize DNA probes by methods known to the skilled artisan such as random primers DNA labeling, nick translation, or end-labeling techniques, or RNA probes using available in vitro transcription systems. In addition, specific primers can be designed and used to amplify a part of or the full-length of the instant sequence. The resulting amplification products can be labeled directly during amplification reactions or labeled after amplification reactions, and used as probes to isolate full-length DNA fragments under conditions of appropriate stringency.

Typically, in PCR-type amplification techniques, the primers have different sequences and are not complementary to each other. Depending on the desired test conditions, the sequences of the primers should be designed to provide for both efficient and faithful replication of the target nucleic acid. Methods of PCR primer design are common and well known in the art, e.g. Thein et al (Thein et al., “The use of oligonucleotide as specific hybridization probes in the Diagnosis of Genetic Disorders”, in Human Genetic Diseases: A Practical Approach, K. E. Davis Ed., 1986, pp. 33-50 IRL Press, Herndon, Va.); and Rychlik (Rychlik, 1993, In White, B. A. (ed.), Methods in Molecular Biology, Vol. 15, pages 31-39, PCR Protocols: Current Methods and Applications. Humana Press, Inc., Totowa, N.J.)

Generally two short segments of the instant sequence may be used in polymerase chain reaction protocols to amplify longer nucleic acid fragments encoding homologous genes from DNA or RNA. The polymerase chain reaction may also be performed on a library of cloned nucleic acid fragments wherein the sequence of one primer is derived from the instant nucleic acid fragment, and the sequence of the other primer takes advantage of the presence of the polyadenylic acid tracts to the 3′ end of the mRNA precursor encoding microbial genes.

Alternatively, the second primer sequence may be based upon sequences derived from the cloning vector. For example, the skilled artisan can follow the RACE protocol (Frohman et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 85, 8998, 1988) to generate cDNAs by using PCR to amplify copies of the region between a single point in the transcript and the 3′ or 5′ end. Primers oriented in the 3′ and 5′ directions can be designed from the instant sequence. Using commercially available 3′ RACE or 5′ RACE systems (Life Technologies, Rockville, Md.), specific 3′ or 5′ cDNA fragments can be isolated (Ohara et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 86, 5673, 1989); and (Loh et al., Science, 243, 217-220 1989).

Alternatively the instant sequence may be employed as a hybridization reagent for the identification of homologs. The basic components of a nucleic acid hybridization test include a probe, a sample suspected of containing the gene or gene fragment of interest, and a specific hybridization method. Probes of the present invention are typically single stranded nucleic acid sequences which are complementary to the nucleic acid sequences to be detected. Probes are “hybridizable” to the nucleic acid sequence to be detected. The probe length can vary from 5 bases to tens of thousands of bases, and will depend upon the specific test to be done. Typically a probe length of about 15 bases to about 30 bases is suitable. Only part of the probe molecule need be complementary to the nucleic acid sequence to be detected. In addition, the complementarity between the probe and the target sequence need not be perfect. Hybridization does occur between imperfectly complementary molecules with the result that a certain fraction of the bases in the hybridized region are not paired with the proper complementary base.

Hybridization methods are well defined. Typically the probe and sample must be mixed under conditions which will permit nucleic acid hybridization. This involves contacting the probe and sample in the presence of an inorganic or organic salt under the proper concentration and temperature conditions. The probe and sample nucleic acids must be in contact for a long enough time that any possible hybridization between the probe and sample nucleic acid may occur. The concentration of probe or target in the mixture will determine the time necessary for hybridization to occur. The higher the probe or target concentration the shorter the hybridization incubation time needed. Optionally a chaotropic agent may be added. The chaotropic agent stabilizes nucleic acids by inhibiting nuclease activity. Furthermore, the chaotropic agent allows sensitive and stringent hybridization of short oligonucleotide probes at room temperature (Van Ness et al., Nucl. Acids Res. 19, 5143-5151, 1991). Suitable chaotropic agents include guanidinium chloride, guanidinium thiocyanate, sodium thiocyanate, lithium tetrachloroacetate, sodium perchlorate, rubidium tetrachloroacetate, potassium iodide, and cesium trifluoroacetate, among others. Typically, the chaotropic agent will be present at a final concentration of about 3M. If desired, one can add formamide to the hybridization mixture, typically 30-50% (v/v).

Various hybridization solutions can be employed. Typically, these comprise from about 20 to 60% volume, preferably 30%, of a polar organic solvent. A common hybridization solution employs about 30-50% v/v formamide, about 0.15 to 1.0 M sodium chloride, about 0.05 to 0.1M buffers, such as sodium citrate, Tris-HCl, PIPES or HEPES (pH range about 6-9), about 0.05 to 0.2% detergent, such as sodium dodecylsulfate, or between 0.5-20 mM EDTA, FICOLL (Pharmacia Inc.) (about 300-500 kiloDaltons), polyvinylpyrrolidone (about 250-500 kiloDaltons), and serum albumin. Also included in the typical hybridization solution will be unlabeled carrier nucleic acids from about 0.1 to 5 mg/mL, fragmented nucleic DNA, e.g., calf thymus or salmon sperm DNA, or yeast RNA, and optionally from about 0.5 to 2% w/v glycine. Other additives may also be included, such as volume exclusion agents which include a variety of polar water-soluble or swellable agents, such as polyethylene glycol, anionic polymers such as polyacrylate or polymethylacrylate, and anionic saccharidic polymers, such as dextran sulfate.

Nucleic acid hybridization is adaptable to a variety of assay formats. One of the most suitable is the sandwich assay format. The sandwich assay is particularly adaptable to hybridization under non-denaturing conditions. A primary component of a sandwich-type assay is a solid support. The solid support has adsorbed to it or covalently coupled to it immobilized nucleic acid probe that is unlabeled and complementary to one portion of the sequence.

Isobutanol Biosynthetic Pathways

One of the principal uses of the present high activity KARI enzymes will be as an element in metabolic pathways useful for the production of isobutanol. A number of these pathways have been elucidated and characterized.

Carbohydrate utilizing microorganisms employ the Embden-Meyerhof-Parnas (EMP) pathway, the Entner and Doudoroff pathway and the pentose phosphate cycle as the central, metabolic routes to provide energy and cellular precursors for growth and maintenance. These pathways have in common the intermediate glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate and, ultimately, pyruvate is formed directly or in combination with the EMP pathway. Subsequently, pyruvate is transformed to acetyl-coenzyme A (acetyl-CoA) via a variety of means. Acetyl-CoA serves as a key intermediate, for example, in generating fatty acids, amino acids and secondary metabolites. The combined reactions of sugar conversion to pyruvate produce energy (e.g. adenosine-5′-triphosphate, ATP) and reducing equivalents (e.g. reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, NADH, and reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate, NADPH). NADH and NADPH must be recycled to their oxidized forms (NAD⁺ and NADP⁺, respectively). In the presence of inorganic electron acceptors (e.g. O₂, NO₃ ⁻ and SO₄ ²⁻), the reducing equivalents may be used to augment the energy pool; alternatively, a reduced carbon byproduct may be formed.

There are four potential pathways for production of isobutanol from carbohydrate sources with recombinant microorganisms as shown in FIG. 1. All potential pathways for conversion of carbohydrates to isobutanol have been described in the commonly owned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/586,315, which is incorporated herein by reference.

The preferred pathway for conversion of pyruvate to isobutanol consists of enzymatic steps “a”, “b”, “c”, “d”, and “e” (FIG. 1) and includes the following substrate to product conversions:

-   -   a) pyruvate to acetolactate, as catalyzed for example by         acetolactate synthase,     -   b) (S)-acetolactate to 2,3-dihydroxyisovalerate, as catalyzed         for example by acetohydroxy acid isomeroreductase,     -   c) 2,3-dihydroxyisovalerate to α-ketoisovalerate, as catalyzed         for example by acetohydroxy acid dehydratase,     -   d) α-ketoisovalerate to isobutyraldehyde, as catalyzed for         example by a branched-chain keto acid decarboxylase, and     -   e) isobutyraldehyde to isobutanol, as catalyzed for example by,         a branched-chain alcohol dehydrogenase.

This pathway combines enzymes involved in well-characterized pathways for valine biosynthesis (pyruvate to α-ketoisovalerate) and valine catabolism α-ketoisovalerate to isobutanol). Since many valine biosynthetic enzymes also catalyze analogous reactions in the isoleucine biosynthetic pathway, substrate specificity is a major consideration in selecting the gene sources. For this reason, the primary genes of interest for the acetolactate synthase enzyme are those from Bacillus (alsS) and Klebsiella (budB). These particular acetolactate synthases are known to participate in butanediol fermentation in these organisms and show increased affinity for pyruvate over ketobutyrate (Gollop et al., J. Bacteriol. 172, 3444-3449, 1990); and (Holtzclaw et al., J. Bacteriol. 121, 917-922, 1975). The second and third pathway steps are catalyzed by acetohydroxy acid reductoisomerase and dehydratase, respectively. These enzymes have been characterized from a number of sources, such as for example, E. coli (Chunduru et al., Biochemistry 28, 486-493, 1989); and (Flint et al., J. Biol. Chem. 268, 14732-14742, 1993). The final two steps of the preferred isobutanol pathway are known to occur in yeast, which can use valine as a nitrogen source and, in the process, secrete isobutanol. α-Ketoiso-valerate can be converted to isobutyraldehyde by a number of keto acid decarboxylase enzymes, such as for example pyruvate decarboxylase. To prevent misdirection of pyruvate away from isobutanol production, a decarboxylase with decreased affinity for pyruvate is desired. So far, there are two such enzymes known in the art (Smit et al., Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 71, 303-311, 2005); and (de la Plaza et al., FEMS Microbiol. Lett. 238, 367-374, 2004). Both enzymes are from strains of Lactococcus lactis and have a 50-200-fold preference for ketoisovalerate over pyruvate. Finally, a number of aldehyde reductases have been identified in yeast, many with overlapping substrate specificity. Those known to prefer branched-chain substrates over acetaldehyde include, but are not limited to, alcohol dehydrogenase VI (ADH6) and Ypr1p (Larroy et al., Biochem. J. 361, 163-172, 2002); and (Ford et al., Yeast 19, 1087-1096, 2002), both of which use NADPH as electron donor. An NADPH-dependent reductase, YqhD, active with branched-chain substrates has also been recently identified in E. coli (Sulzenbacher et al., J. Mol. Biol. 342, 489-502, 2004).

Two of the other potential pathways for isobutanol production also contain the initial three steps of “a”, “b” and “c”. One pathway consists of enzymatic steps “a”, “b”, “c”, “f”, “g”, “e”. Step “f” containing a “branched-chain keto acid dehydrogenase” with an EC number 1.2.4.4. Step “g” containing an “acylating aldehyde dehydrogenase” with a EC numbers 1.2.1.10 and 1.2.1.57 in addition to step “e” containing the “branched chain alcohol dehydrogenase”. The other potential pathway consists of steps “a”, “b”, “c”, “h”, “i”, “j”, “e”. The term “transaminase” (step “h”) EC numbers 2.6.1.42 and 2.6.1.66. Step “h” consists of either a “valine dehydrogenase” with EC numbers 1.4.1.8 and 1.4.1.9 or step “i”, a “valine decarboxylase” with an EC number 4.1.1.14. Finally step “j” will use an “omega transaminase” with an EC number 2.6.1.18 to generate isobutyraldehyde which will be reduced by step “e” to produce isobutanol. All potential pathways for conversion of pyruvate to isobutanol are depicted in FIG. 1.

Additionally, a number of organisms are known to produce butyrate and/or butanol via a butyryl-CoA intermediate (Dürre et al., FEMS Microbiol. Rev. 17, 251-262, 1995); and (Abbad-Andaloussi et al., Microbiology 142, 1149-1158, 1996). Therefore isobutanol production in these organisms will take place using steps “k”, “g” and “e” shown in FIG. 1. Step “k” will use an “isobutyryl-CoA mutase” with an EC number 5.4.99.13. The nest step will involve using the “acylating aldehyde dehydrogenase” with the EC numbers 1.2.1.10 and 1.2.1.57 to produce isobutyraldehyde followed by enzymatic step “e” to produce isobutanol. All these pathways are fully described in the commonly owned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/586,315 herein incorporated by reference in its entirety.

Microbial Hosts for Isobutanol Production

Microbial hosts for isobutanol production may be selected from bacteria, cyanobacteria, filamentous fungi and yeasts. The microbial host used for isobutanol production should be tolerant to isobutanol so that the yield is not limited by butanol toxicity. Microbes that are metabolically active at high titer levels of isobutanol are not well known in the art. Although butanol-tolerant mutants have been isolated from solventogenic Clostridia, little information is available concerning the butanol tolerance of other potentially useful bacterial strains. Most of the studies on the comparison of alcohol tolerance in bacteria suggest that butanol is more toxic than ethanol (de Cavalho et al., Microsc. Res. Tech. 64, 215-22, 2004) and (Kabelitz et al., FEMS Microbiol. Lett. 220, 223-227, 2003, Tomas et al. J. Bacteriol. 186, 2006-2018, 2004) report that the yield of 1-butanol during fermentation in Clostridium acetobutylicum may be limited by 1-butanol toxicity. The primary effect of 1-butanol on Clostridium acetobutylicum is disruption of membrane functions (Hermann et al., Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 50, 1238-1243, 1985).

The microbial hosts selected for the production of isobutanol should be tolerant to isobutanol and should be able to convert carbohydrates to isobutanol. The criteria for selection of suitable microbial hosts include the following: intrinsic tolerance to isobutanol, high rate of glucose utilization, availability of genetic tools for gene manipulation, and the ability to generate stable chromosomal alterations.

Suitable host strains with a tolerance for isobutanol may be identified by screening based on the intrinsic tolerance of the strain. The intrinsic tolerance of microbes to isobutanol may be measured by determining the concentration of isobutanol that is responsible for 50% inhibition of the growth rate (IC₅₀) when grown in a minimal medium. The IC₅₀ values may be determined using methods known in the art. For example, the microbes of interest may be grown in the presence of various amounts of isobutanol and the growth rate monitored by measuring the optical density at 600 nanometers (OD₆₀₀). The doubling time may be calculated from the logarithmic part of the growth curve and used as a measure of the growth rate. The concentration of isobutanol that produces 50% inhibition of growth may be determined from a graph of the percent inhibition of growth versus the isobutanol concentration. Preferably, the host strain should have an IC₅₀ for isobutanol of greater than about 0.5%.

The microbial host for isobutanol production should also utilize glucose at a high rate. Most microbes are capable of utilizing carbohydrates. However, certain environmental microbes cannot utilize carbohydrates to high efficiency, and therefore would not be suitable hosts.

The ability to genetically modify the host is essential for the production of any recombinant microorganism. The mode of gene transfer technology may be by electroporation, conjugation, transduction or natural transformation. A broad range of host conjugative plasmids and drug resistance markers are available. The cloning vectors are tailored to the host organisms based on the nature of antibiotic resistance markers that can function in that host.

The microbial host also has to be manipulated in order to inactivate competing pathways for carbon flow by deleting various genes. This requires the availability of either transposons to direct inactivation or chromosomal integration vectors. Additionally, the production host should be amenable to chemical mutagenesis so that mutations to improve intrinsic isobutanol tolerance may be obtained.

Based on the criteria described above, suitable microbial hosts for the production of isobutanol include, but are not limited to, members of the genera Clostridium, Zymomonas, Escherichia, Salmonella, Rhodococcus, Pseudomonas, Bacillus, Vibrio, Lactobacillus, Enterococcus, Alcaligenes, Klebsiella, Paenibacillus, Arthrobacter, Corynebacterium, Brevibacterium, Pichia, Candida, Hansenula and Saccharomyces. Preferred hosts include: Escherichia coli, Alcaligenes eutrophus, Bacillus licheniformis, Paenibacillus macerans, Rhodococcus erythropolis, Pseudomonas putida, Lactobacillus plantarum, Enterococcus faecium, Enterococcus gallinarium, Enterococcus faecalis, Bacillus subtilis and Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Construction of Production Host

Recombinant organisms containing the necessary genes that will encode the enzymatic pathway for the conversion of a fermentable carbon substrate to isobutanol may be constructed using techniques well known in the art. In the present invention, genes encoding the enzymes of one of the isobutanol biosynthetic pathways of the invention, for example, acetolactate synthase, acetohydroxy acid isomeroreductase, acetohydroxy acid dehydratase, branched-chain α-keto acid decarboxylase, and branched-chain alcohol dehydrogenase, may be isolated from various sources, as described above.

Methods of obtaining desired genes from a bacterial genome are common and well known in the art of molecular biology. For example, if the sequence of the gene is known, suitable genomic libraries may be created by restriction endonuclease digestion and may be screened with probes complementary to the desired gene sequence. Once the sequence is isolated, the DNA may be amplified using standard primer-directed amplification methods such as polymerase chain reaction (U.S. Pat. No. 4,683,202) to obtain amounts of DNA suitable for transformation using appropriate vectors. Tools for codon optimization for expression in a heterologous host are readily available. Some tools for codon optimization are available based on the GC content of the host organism.

Once the relevant pathway genes are identified and isolated they may be transformed into suitable expression hosts by means well known in the art. Vectors or cassettes useful for the transformation of a variety of host cells are common and commercially available from companies such as EPICENTRE® (Madison, Wis.), Invitrogen Corp. (Carlsbad, Calif.), Stratagene (La Jolla, Calif.), and New England Biolabs, Inc. (Beverly, Mass.). Typically the vector or cassette contains sequences directing transcription and translation of the relevant gene, a selectable marker, and sequences allowing autonomous replication or chromosomal integration. Suitable vectors comprise a region 5′ of the gene which harbors transcriptional initiation controls and a region 3′ of the DNA fragment which controls transcriptional termination. Both control regions may be derived from genes homologous to the transformed host cell, although it is to be understood that such control regions may also be derived from genes that are not native to the specific species chosen as a production host.

Initiation control regions or promoters, which are useful to drive expression of the relevant pathway coding regions in the desired host cell are numerous and familiar to those skilled in the art. Virtually any promoter capable of driving these genetic elements is suitable for the present invention including, but not limited to, CYC1, HIS3, GAL1, GAL10, ADH1, PGK, PHO5, GAPDH, ADC1, TRP1, URA3, LEU2, ENO, TPI (useful for expression in Saccharomyces); AOX1 (useful for expression in Pichia); and lac, ara, tet, trp, IP_(L), IP_(R), T7, tac, and trc (useful for expression in Escherichia coli, Alcaligenes, and Pseudomonas) as well as the amy, apr, npr promoters and various phage promoters useful for expression in Bacillus subtilis, Bacillus licheniformis, and Paenibacillus macerans.

Termination control regions may also be derived from various genes native to the preferred hosts. Optionally, a termination site may be unnecessary, however, it is most preferred if included.

Certain vectors are capable of replicating in a broad range of host bacteria and can be transferred by conjugation. The complete and annotated sequence of pRK404 and three related vectors-pRK437, pRK442, and pRK442(H) are available. These derivatives have proven to be valuable tools for genetic manipulation in Gram-negative bacteria (Scott et al., Plasmid 50, 74-79, 2003). Several plasmid derivatives of broad-host-range Inc P4 plasmid RSF1010 are also available with promoters that can function in a range of Gram-negative bacteria. Plasmid pAYC36 and pAYC37, have active promoters along with multiple cloning sites to allow for the heterologous gene expression in Gram-negative bacteria.

Chromosomal gene replacement tools are also widely available. For example, a thermosensitive variant of the broad-host-range replicon pWV101 has been modified to construct a plasmid pVE6002 which can be used to effect gene replacement in a range of Gram-positive bacteria (Maguin et al., J. Bacteriol. 174, 5633-5638, 1992). Additionally, in vitro transposomes are available to create random mutations in a variety of genomes from commercial sources such as EPICENTRE®.

The expression of an isobutanol biosynthetic pathway in various preferred microbial hosts is described in more detail below.

Expression of an Isobutanol Biosynthetic Pathway in E. coli

Vectors or cassettes useful for the transformation of E. coli are common and commercially available from the companies listed above. For example, the genes of an isobutanol biosynthetic pathway may be isolated from various sources, cloned into a modified pUC19 vector and transformed into E. coli NM522.

Expression of an Isobutanol Biosynthetic Pathway in Rhodococcus erythropolis

A series of E. coli-Rhodococcus shuttle vectors are available for expression in R. erythropolis, including, but not limited to, pRhBR17 and pDA71 (Kostichka et al., Appl. Microbiol. Biotechnol. 62, 61-68, 2003). Additionally, a series of promoters are available for heterologous gene expression in R. erythropolis (Nakashima et al., Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 70, 5557-5568, 2004 and Tao et al., Appl. Microbiol. Biotechnol. 68, 346-354, 2005). Targeted gene disruption of chromosomal genes in R. erythropolis may be created using the method described by Tao et al., supra, and Brans et al. (Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 66, 2029-2036, 2000).

The heterologous genes required for the production of isobutanol, as described above, may be cloned initially in pDA71 or pRhBR71 and transformed into E. coli. The vectors may then be transformed into R. erythropolis by electroporation, as described by Kostichka et al., supra. The recombinants may be grown in synthetic medium containing glucose and the production of isobutanol can be followed using methods known in the art.

Expression of an Isobutanol Biosynthetic Pathway in B. Subtilis

Methods for gene expression and creation of mutations in B. subtilis are also well known in the art. For example, the genes of an isobutanol biosynthetic pathway may be isolated from various sources, cloned into a modified pUC19 vector and transformed into Bacillus subtilis BE1010. Additionally, the five genes of an isobutanol biosynthetic pathway can be split into two operons for expression. The three genes of the pathway (bubB, ilvD, and kivD) can be integrated into the chromosome of Bacillus subtilis BE1010 (Payne, et al., J. Bacteriol. 173, 2278-2282, 1991). The remaining two genes (ilvC and bdhB) can be cloned into an expression vector and transformed into the Bacillus strain carrying the integrated isobutanol genes

Expression of an Isobutanol Biosynthetic Pathway in B. licheniformis

Most of the plasmids and shuttle vectors that replicate in B. subtilis may be used to transform B. licheniformis by either protoplast transformation or electroporation. The genes required for the production of isobutanol may be cloned in plasmids pBE20 or pBE60 derivatives (Nagarajan et al., Gene 114, 121-126, 1992). Methods to transform B. licheniformis are known in the art (Fleming et al. Appl. Environ. Microbiol., 61, 3775-3780, 1995). The plasmids constructed for expression in B. subtilis may be transformed into B. licheniformis to produce a recombinant microbial host that produces isobutanol.

Expression of an Isobutanol Biosynthetic Pathway in Paenibacillus macerans

Plasmids may be constructed as described above for expression in B. subtilis and used to transform Paenibacillus macerans by protoplast transformation to produce a recombinant microbial host that produces isobutanol.

Expression of the isobutanol biosynthetic pathway in Alcaligenes (Ralstonia) eutrophus

Methods for gene expression and creation of mutations in Alcaligenes eutrophus are known in the art (Taghavi et al., Appl. Environ. Microbiol., 60, 3585-3591, 1994). The genes for an isobutanol biosynthetic pathway may be cloned in any of the broad host range vectors described above, and electroporated to generate recombinants that produce isobutanol. The poly(hydroxybutyrate) pathway in Alcaligenes has been described in detail, a variety of genetic techniques to modify the Alcaligenes eutrophus genome is known, and those tools can be applied for engineering an isobutanol biosynthetic pathway.

Expression of an Isobutanol Biosynthetic Pathway in Pseudomonas putida

Methods for gene expression in Pseudomonas putida are known in the art (see for example Ben-Bassat et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,586,229, which is incorporated herein by reference). The butanol pathway genes may be inserted into pPCU18 and this ligated DNA may be electroporated into electrocompetent Pseudomonas putida DOT-T1 C5aAR1 cells to generate recombinants that produce isobutanol.

Expression of an Isobutanol Biosynthetic Pathway in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Methods for gene expression in Saccharomyces cerevisiae are known in the art (e.g., Methods in Enzymology, Volume 194, Guide to Yeast Genetics and Molecular and Cell Biology, Part A, 2004, Christine Guthrie and Gerald R. Fink, eds., Elsevier Academic Press, San Diego, Calif.). Expression of genes in yeast typically requires a promoter, followed by the gene of interest, and a transcriptional terminator. A number of yeast promoters can be used in constructing expression cassettes for genes encoding an isobutanol biosynthetic pathway, including, but not limited to constitutive promoters FBA, GPD, ADH1, and GPM, and the inducible promoters GAL1, GAL10, and CUP1. Suitable transcriptional terminators include, but are not limited to FBAt, GPDt, GPMt, ERG10t, GAL1t, CYC1, and ADH1. For example, suitable promoters, transcriptional terminators, and the genes of an isobutanol biosynthetic pathway may be cloned into E. coli-yeast shuttle vectors.

Expression of an Isobutanol Biosynthetic Pathway in Lactobacillus plantarum

The Lactobacillus genus belongs to the Lactobacillales family and many plasmids and vectors used in the transformation of Bacillus subtilis and Streptococcus may be used for lactobacillus. Non-limiting examples of suitable vectors include pAMPβ1 and derivatives thereof (Renault et al., Gene 183,175-182, 1996); and (O'Sullivan et al., Gene 137, 227-231, 1993); pMBB1 and pHW800, a derivative of pMBB1 (Wyckoff et al. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 62, 1481-1486, 1996); pMG1, a conjugative plasmid (Tanimoto et al., J. Bacteriol. 184, 5800-5804, 2002); pNZ9520 (Kleerebezem et al., Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 63, 4581-4584, 1997); pAM401 (Fujimoto et al., Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 67, 1262-1267, 2001); and pAT392 (Arthur et al., Antimicrob. Agents Chemother. 38, 1899-1903, 1994). Several plasmids from Lactobacillus plantarum have also been reported (van Kranenburg R, et al. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 71, 1223-1230, 2005).

Expression of an Isobutanol Biosynthetic Pathway in Various Enterococcus species (E. faecium, E. gallinarium, and E. faecalis)

The Enterococcus genus belongs to the Lactobacillales family and many plasmids and vectors used in the transformation of Lactobacilli, Bacilli and Streptococci species may be used for Enterococcus species. Non-limiting examples of suitable vectors include pAMPβ1 and derivatives thereof (Renault et al., Gene 183,175-182, 1996); and (O'Sullivan et al., Gene 137, 227-231, 1993); pMBB1 and pHW800, a derivative of pMBB1 (Wyckoff et al. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 62, 1481-1486, 1996); pMG1, a conjugative plasmid (Tanimoto et al., J. Bacteriol. 184, 5800-5804, 2002); pNZ9520 (Kleerebezem et al., Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 63, 4581-4584, 1997); pAM401 (Fujimoto et al., Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 67, 1262-1267, 2001); and pAT392 (Arthur et al., Antimicrob. Agents Chemother. 38, 1899-1903, 1994). Expression vectors for E. faecalis using the nisA gene from Lactococcus may also be used (Eichenbaum et al., Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 64, 2763-2769, 1998). Additionally, vectors for gene replacement in the E. faecium chromosome may be used (Nallaapareddy et al., Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 72, 334-345, 2006)).

Fermentation Media

Fermentation media in the present invention must contain suitable carbon substrates. Suitable substrates may include but are not limited to monosaccharides such as glucose and fructose, oligosaccharides such as lactose or sucrose, polysaccharides such as starch or cellulose or mixtures thereof and unpurified mixtures from renewable feedstocks such as cheese whey permeate, corn steep liquor, sugar beet molasses, and barley malt. Additionally the carbon substrate may also be one-carbon substrates such as carbon dioxide, or methanol for which metabolic conversion into key biochemical intermediates has been demonstrated. In addition to one and two carbon substrates methylotrophic organisms are also known to utilize a number of other carbon containing compounds such as methylamine, glucosamine and a variety of amino acids for metabolic activity. For example, methylotrophic yeast are known to utilize the carbon from methylamine to form trehalose or glycerol (Bellion et al., Microb. Growth C1 Compd., [Int. Symp.], 7th (1993), 415-32. (eds): Murrell, J. Collin; Kelly, Don P. Publisher: Intercept, Andover, UK). Similarly, various species of Candida will metabolize alanine or oleic acid (Sulter et al., Arch. Microbiol. 153, 485-489, 1990). Hence it is contemplated that the source of carbon utilized in the present invention may encompass a wide variety of carbon containing substrates and will only be limited by the choice of organism.

Although it is contemplated that all of the above mentioned carbon substrates and mixtures thereof are suitable in the present invention, preferred carbon substrates are glucose, fructose, and sucrose.

In addition to an appropriate carbon source, fermentation media must contain suitable minerals, salts, cofactors, buffers and other components, known to those skilled in the art, suitable for the growth of the cultures and promotion of the enzymatic pathway necessary for isobutanol production.

Culture Conditions

Typically cells are grown at a temperature in the range of about 25° C. to about 40° C. in an appropriate medium. Suitable growth media in the present invention are common commercially prepared media such as Luria Bertani (LB) broth, Sabouraud Dextrose (SD) broth or Yeast Medium (YM) broth. Other defined or synthetic growth media may also be used, and the appropriate medium for growth of the particular microorganism will be known by one skilled in the art of microbiology or fermentation science. The use of agents known to modulate catabolite repression directly or indirectly, e.g., cyclic adenosine 2′,3′-monophosphate (cAMP), may also be incorporated into the fermentation medium.

Suitable pH ranges for the fermentation are between pH 5.0 to pH 9.0, where pH 6.0 to pH 8.0 is preferred for the initial condition.

Fermentations may be performed under aerobic or anaerobic conditions, where anaerobic or microaerobic conditions are preferred.

Industrial Batch and Continuous Fermentations

The present process employs a batch method of fermentation. A classical batch fermentation is a closed system where the composition of the medium is set at the beginning of the fermentation and not subject to artificial alterations during the fermentation. Thus, at the beginning of the fermentation the medium is inoculated with the desired organism or organisms, and fermentation is permitted to occur without adding anything to the system. Typically, however, a “batch” fermentation is batch with respect to the addition of carbon source and attempts are often made at controlling factors such as pH and oxygen concentration. In batch systems the metabolite and biomass compositions of the system change constantly up to the time the fermentation is stopped. Within batch cultures cells moderate through a static lag phase to a high growth log phase and finally to a stationary phase where growth rate is diminished or halted. If untreated, cells in the stationary phase will eventually die. Cells in log phase generally are responsible for the bulk of production of end product or intermediate.

A variation on the standard batch system is the Fed-Batch system. Fed-Batch fermentation processes are also suitable in the present invention and comprise a typical batch system with the exception that the substrate is added in increments as the fermentation progresses. Fed-Batch systems are useful when catabolite repression is apt to inhibit the metabolism of the cells and where it is desirable to have limited amounts of substrate in the media. Measurement of the actual substrate concentration in Fed-Batch systems is difficult and is therefore estimated on the basis of the changes of measurable factors such as pH, dissolved oxygen and the partial pressure of waste gases such as CO₂. Batch and Fed-Batch fermentations are common and well known in the art and examples may be found in Thomas D. Brock in Biotechnology: A Textbook of Industrial Microbiology, Second Edition (1989) Sinauer Associates, Inc., Sunderland, Mass., or Deshpande, Mukund (Appl. Biochem. Biotechnol., 36, 227, 1992), herein incorporated by reference.

Although the present invention is performed in batch mode it is contemplated that the method would be adaptable to continuous fermentation methods. Continuous fermentation is an open system where a defined fermentation medium is added continuously to a bioreactor and an equal amount of conditioned media is removed simultaneously for processing. Continuous fermentation generally maintains the cultures at a constant high density where cells are primarily in log phase growth.

Continuous fermentation allows for modulation of one factor or any number of factors that affect cell growth or end product concentration. For example, one method will maintain a limiting nutrient such as the carbon source or nitrogen level at a fixed rate and allow all other parameters to moderate. In other systems a number of factors affecting growth can be altered continuously while the cell concentration, measured by media turbidity, is kept constant. Continuous systems strive to maintain steady state growth conditions and thus the cell loss due to the medium being drawn off must be balanced against the cell growth rate in the fermentation. Methods of modulating nutrients and growth factors for continuous fermentation processes as well as techniques for maximizing the rate of product formation are well known in the art of industrial microbiology and a variety of methods are detailed by Brock, supra.

It is contemplated that the present invention may be practiced using either batch, fed-batch or continuous processes and that any known mode of fermentation would be suitable. Additionally, it is contemplated that cells may be immobilized on a substrate as whole cell catalysts and subjected to fermentation conditions for isobutanol production.

Methods for Isobutanol Isolation from the Fermentation Medium

The biologically produced isobutanol may be isolated from the fermentation medium using methods known in the art for Acetone-butanol-ethanol (ABE) fermentations (see for example, Durre, Appl. Microbiol. Biotechnol. 49, 639-648, 1998), and (Groot et al., Process. Biochem. 27, 61-75, 1992 and references therein). For example, solids may be removed from the fermentation medium by centrifugation, filtration, decantation and isobutanol may be isolated from the fermentation medium using methods such as distillation, azeotropic distillation, liquid-liquid extraction, adsorption, gas stripping, membrane evaporation, or pervaporation.

EXAMPLES

The present invention is further defined in the following Examples. It should be understood that these Examples, while indicating preferred embodiments of the invention, are given by way of illustration only. From the above discussion and these Examples, one skilled in the art can ascertain the essential characteristics of this invention, and without departing from the spirit and scope thereof, can make various changes and modifications of the invention to adapt it to various uses and conditions.

General Methods

Standard recombinant DNA and molecular cloning techniques used in the Examples are well known in the art and are described by Sambrook et al (Sambrook, J., Fritsch, E. F. and Maniatis, T. (Molecular Cloning: A Laboratory Manual; Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, Cold Spring Harbor, 1989, here in referred to as Maniatis) and Maniatis (supra) and by Silhavy et al, (Silhavy, et al., Experiments with Gene Fusions, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y. 1984) and by Ausubel et al., (Ausubel et al, Current Protocols in Molecular Biology, pub. by Greene Publishing Assoc. and Wiley-Interscience, 1987).

Materials and methods suitable for the maintenance and growth of bacterial cultures are well known in the art. Techniques suitable for use in the following examples may be found as set out in Manual of Methods for General Bacteriology (Phillipp et al, eds., American Society for Microbiology, Washington, D.C., 1994) or by Thomas D. Brock in (Brock, Biotechnology: A Textbook of Industrial Microbiology, Second Edition, Sinauer Associates, Inc., Sunderland, Mass. (1989). All reagents, restriction enzymes and materials used for the growth and maintenance of bacterial cells were obtained from Aldrich Chemicals (Milwaukee, Wis.), BD Diagnostic Systems (Sparks, Md.), Life Technologies (Rockville, Md.), or Sigma Chemical Company (St. Louis, Mo.) unless otherwise specified.

The oligonucleotide primers to use in the following Examples are given in Table 3.

TABLE 3 OLIGONUCLEOTIDE PRIMERS USED IN THIS INVENTION SE- QUENCE ID No. SEQUENCE Description 11 GAGCTCCTTAAGAAGGAGGTAA Primer for TCACCATGGCTAACTACTTCAA ilvC amplifi- cation 12 GGATCCGATCGAGCTAGCGCGGCCGC Primer for TTAACCCGCAACAGCAATACGTTTC ilvC amplifi- cation 13 GCTAACAGGAGGAAGAGC Forward pBAD- TCATGGCACCCTCGCTC SAC1-F 14 GAGCGAGGGTGCCATGAG Reverse pBAD- CTCTTCCTCCTGTTAGC SAC1-R 15 ATCACCGAGCTCATGGCTAACT Forward ilvC- ACTTCAATACACTGAATCTGCG trc-Sac1-F 16 GGCCGCAAGCTTTTAACCCGCAA Reverse ilvC- CAGCAATACGTTTCATATCTGTC trc-HindIII-R 17 CCGTAAAGATATCACCGTAG ilvC-trc-F3 18 CAGTATGAAGGCAAAATCGG ilvC-trc-F5 19 CGTACTCAGCGGTATCAGAG ilvC-trc-R2 20 CAGATTTCACTTCCGCAACG ilvC-trc-R4 21 CGCAACTCTCTACTGTTTCTCCATACCCG pBAD-e-F1 22 ACCGCTTCTGCGTTCTGATTTAATC PALPK-R1 23 CAAAACAGCCAAGCTTTTAGTT PAO1-C-F1 CTTGCTCTTGTCGACGATCTTG 24 CAGGAGGAAGAGCTCATGCGCG PAO1-C-R1 TTTTCTACGATAAAGACTGTG 25 CAAAACAGCCAAGCTTTTAGTT PF5-C-F1 CTTGGCTTTGTCGACGATTTTG 26 CAGGAGGAAGAGCTCATGAAAGT PF5-C-R1 TTTCTACGATAAAGACTGCGAC 27 GATCATGATCGCGCCGAAGG PF5-S-F2 28 CTGCTCACCGAACAGGTCGG PF5-S-R2 37 CTGCAGCACATGAAGACTCCA Forward TGGCACCCTCGCTCGACTCGA PAL-F1 TCTCGCACTCGTTCGCAAACG 38 TCTCTCATCCGCCAAAACAGA Reverse AGCTTCTAACGCGAGCATCT PAL-R1 39 GGGCTAACAGGAGGAAGAATTC Forward ATGGCACCCTCGCTCGACTCG PAL-EcoR1-F1 40 CGAGTCGAGCGAGGGTGCCATG Reverse AATTCTTCCTCCTGTAGCCC PAL-Eco-R1-R1

The meaning of abbreviations is as follows: “sec” means second(s), “min” means minute(s), “h” means hour(s), “nm” means nanometers, “uL” means microliter(s), “mL” means milliliter(s), “mg/mL” means milligram per milliliter, “L” means liter(s), “nm” means nanometers, “mM” means millimolar, “M” means molar, “mmol” means millimole(s), “μmole” means micromole(s)”, “kg” means kilogram, “g” means gram(s), “μg” means microgram(s) and “ng” means nanogram(s), “PCR” means polymerase chain reaction, “OD” means optical density, “OD₆₀₀” means the optical density measured at a wavelength of 600 nm, “kDa” means kilodaltons, “g” means the gravitation constant, “bp” means base pair(s), “kbp” means kilobase pair(s), “kb” means kilobase, “%” means percent, “% w/v” means weight/volume percent, % v/v” means volume/volume percent, “HPLC” means high performance liquid chromatography, “g/L” means gram per liter, “ug/L” means microgram per liter, “ng/uL” means nanogram per microliter, “pmol/uL” means picomol per microliter, “RPM” means rotation per minute, “umol/min/mg” means micromole per minute per milligram, “w/v” means weight per volume, “v/v” means volume per volume.

Example 1 Comparative Analysis of KARI Enzyme Activity

This example describes preparation of ilvC gene over-expression constructs and measurement of enzyme activity using the acetolactate dependent oxidation of NADPH by the KARI enzyme encoded by the ilvC gene of E. coli.

Construction of pBAD-ilvC Expression Plasmid—Isolation of the ilvC Gene from E. coli

The ilvC gene coding region was amplified from E. coli strain FM5 (ATCC 53911) genomic DNA using PCR. The cells were grown overnight (37° C., while shaking at 300 RPM) in 50 mL culture tubes containing 4 mL of Luria Bertani (LB) medium (Mediatech Inc., Herndon, Va.). They were then harvested by centrifugation at 1000×g for 3 min and genomic DNA of the cells was prepared using the Gentra Puregene kit (Gentra Systems, Inc., Minneapolis, Minn.; catalog number D-5000A) according to the manufacturer's directions. An ilvC coding region DNA fragment was prepared by PCR using the E. coli DNA as template and primers SEQ ID No: 11 and 12.

PCR was carried out using Finnzymes Phusion™ High-Fidelity PCR Master Mix (New England Biolabs Inc., Beverly, Mass.; catalog no. F-531) according to the manufacturer's protocol. Amplification was carried out in a DNA Thermocycler GeneAmp 9700 (PE Applied Biosystems, Foster city, CA). The PCR product (0.5 uL), with no further purification, was ligated into pCR4Blunt TOPO (Invitrogen, Carlsbad, Calif., Cat# 45-0031) and transformed into chemically competent TOP10 cells (Invitrogen 44-0301). The ligation product was streaked on a plate containing the LB medium plus 100 ug/mL ampicillin (Teknova Inc, Hollister, Calif., Cat # L1004). Clones containing the ilvC insert were confirmed by restriction digestion with SacI/BamHI. Three out of 4 plasmids digested had the expected 1.5 kbp band. The resulting clone was named pCR4Blunt TOPO-ilvC.

The ilvC fragment from the pCR4Blunt TOPO-ilvC cloning vector was released by SacI/BamHI digestion and ligated into SacI/BamHI digested pTrc99A (Amann, et al., Gene, 69, 301-315, 1988) using T4 DNA ligase (New England Biolabs, Beverly, Mass.). This construct was electroporated into electrocompetent E. coli TOP10 cells (Invitrogen 44-0035), and streaked on an LB/ampicillin plate as described above. The vector containing the 1.5 kb insert was named pTrc99A-ilvC.

Preparation of the Pbad Vector for Cloning

A derivative of the pBAD.HisA (Invitrogen) vector containing a SacI site at the 5′-end of the gene was constructed for cloning the ilvC gene into pBAD using SacI/HindIII restriction sites. This construct was created in three steps. First, the phenylalanine ammonia lyase (PAL; EC 4.3.1.5) coding region from Rhodotorula glutinis was cloned into the pBAD-HisA vector to make pBAD-PAL. Second, the EcoRI site was added at the 5′-end of the gene immediately before the start codon on the pBAD-PAL construct to make pBAD-PAL-EcoRI. Third, the EcoRI site was replaced by a SacI site and the resulting vector was digested with SacI/HindIII to make a pBAD-SacI vector for the cloning of ilvC gene. The PAL gene was first PCR amplified from the pKK223-PAL vector (U.S. Pat. No. 6,521,748) using Forward primer (PAL-F1) (SEQ ID No: 37) and Reverse primer (PAL-R1) (SEQ ID No: 38).

PCR was carried out in a Perkin Elmer PCR9700 thermocycler (PE Applied Biosystems, Foster city, CA) using TaKaRai Taq DNA Polymerase Premix (TAKARA Bio USA, Madison, Wis., catalog #TAK_R004A) according to the manufacturer's protocol. The PCR product was partially purified using the QIAQuik PCR purification kit (Qiagen cat #28106) and digested with BbsI and HindIII. This produced a fragment containing an NcoI overhang on the 5′ end. The digestion product was then ligated into a pBAD.HisA (Invitrogen) vector that had been digested with NcoI/HindIII. The ligation reaction was carried out using T4 DNA ligase (Promega) by following the standard protocol provided by manufacturer. Two uL of the ligation product were used to transform TOP10 electro-competent cells (Invitrogen) using a Bio-RAD Gene Pulser II (Bio-Rad Laboratories Inc, Hercules, Calif.) by following the manufacturer's directions. The transformed cells were streaked onto agar plates containing the LB medium plus 100 ug/mL ampicillin (Teknova Inc, Hollister, Calif., Cat#L1004) and incubated overnight at 37° C. Clones containing the PAL insert were confirmed by restriction digestion with NcoI/HindIII. This construct was named pBAD-PAL. The EcoRI site was then added to the 5′-end of the PAL gene in the above construct by use of a QuikChange II XL site directed mutagenesis kit (Stratagene, La Jolla Calif., Catalogue # 200524). The Forward primer (PAL-EcoRI-F1) (SEQ ID No: 39) and Reverse primer (PAL-EcoR1-R1) (SEQ ID NO: 40) were designed and the reaction mixtures prepared by following the manufacturer's direction. The pBAD-PAL construct prepared above was used as template in the reaction below.

The 50 uL reaction mixture contained 1.0 uL of 50 ng/uL of template plasmid, 1.0 uL of 10 μmol/uL of each primer, 5 uL of 10× reaction buffer, 1.0 uL of dNTP mix and 3 uL of Quik solution, 30 uL of water and 1.0 uL of pfu-ultra high fidelity DNA polymerase in a thin wall 200 uL tube. All reagents and the polymerase used in this reaction were provided in the above QuikChange II XL kit. The reaction was carried out in a DNA Thermocycler GeneAmp 2400 (PE Applied Biosystems, Foster city, CA) using the following conditions. The starting temperature was 96° C. for 2 min, after which 18 heating/cooling cycles were performed. Each cycle consisted of 96° C. for 30 sec, followed by 60° C. for 30 sec, and 72° C. for 160 sec. At the completion of the temperature cycling, the samples were kept at 72° C. for 600 sec more, and then held awaiting sample recovery at 4° C.

Following completion of the reaction, 1.0 uL of the restriction enzyme DpnI (from the above kit) was added to the reaction, followed by incubation at 37° C. for 3 h to digest the template plasmids in the reaction.

2.0 uL of the DpnI digested reaction product was then transformed into 50 ul of E. coli TOP10 electro competent cells (Invitrogen) using a Bio RAD Gene Pulser II (Bio-Rad Laboratories Inc, Hercules, Calif.) by following the manufacturer's direction. Different volumes (2.0 uL, 5.0 uL and 20 uL) of the transformed cells were streaked on 10 cm agar plates containing the LB medium and 100 ug/mL of ampicillin, and the plates were incubated at 37° C. overnight. Three clones were picked from the plate containing well-separated colonies. The plasmids from the three clones were purified using a Qiaprep spin miniprep kit (Qiagen, Valencia Calif., catalogue # 27106) by following the manufacturer's instructions. The positive clones were confirmed by restriction digestion analysis using restriction enzymes EcoRI and Hind III (Promega, Madison, Wis.) by placing 1.0 uL of 10× reaction buffer (Promega buffer), 1.0 uL of the purified plasmid and 1.0 uL of each restriction enzyme in 6.0 uL of deionized water. The reaction mixture was incubated at 37° C. for 60 min. The digested product of each clone was separated on a 0.8% agarose E gel (Invitrogen, catalogue # G5018-08). One 2.1 kbp and one 4.0 kbp DNA fragment were detected on the gel in samples with both EcoRI and HindIII restrictions sites in the construct. The EcoRI site in this construct was then replaced by SacI site using the same protocol described above with plasmid template pBAD-PAL-EcoRI and primers SEQ ID Nos: 13 and 14.

The positive clones were confirmed by restriction digestion analysis using restriction enzymes SacI and Hind III (Promega, Madison, Wis.). Once the positive clones were identified, the above restriction digestion reaction was set up in a larger scale (50 uL). The 4 kbp fragment containing the digested vector gel purified from the mix using a 1% agarose gel and QIAquick gel extraction kit (Qiagen, Valencia Calif., catalogue # 28704) by following the manufacturer's protocol. This construct was named pBAD-SacI.

Host Strains Used for Over-Expressing KARI

The host strain E. coli Bw25113 (ΔilvC), an ilvC gene-knockout, was used for making constructs over-expressing the KARI enzyme. In this strain, the entire ilvC gene on the E. coli chromosome was replaced by a Kanamycin cassette using the Lambda red homology recombination technology (Datsenko and Wanner, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 97, 6640-6645, 2000). All of the strains and vectors needed for the creation of the knockout strain using this technology were obtained from Prof. Barry Wanner (Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind.).

Preparation of the ilvc Coding Region for Cloning

The coding region for ilvC was amplified using high fidelity pfu-ultra polymerase (Stratagene, La Jolla, Calif.) with the addition of a SacI site to the 5′ end of the forward primer right before the ATG and a HindIII site added to the 5′ end of the reverse primer right after the stop codon. The primer with SEQ ID No: 15 (Forward: ilvc-trc-SacI-F) and primer with SEQ ID No: 16 (Reverse: ilvc-trc-HindIII-R) were used for this reaction. The template used in the PCR reaction was the ptrc99A-ilvC construct described above.

A 50 uL reaction mixture contained 5.0 uL of 10× reaction buffer supplied with the pfu-ulta polymerase (Stratagene), 1.0 uL of 50 ng/uL template, 1.0 uL each of 10 μmol/uL forward and reverse primers, 1.0 uL of 40 mM dNTP mix (Clonetech, Mountain View, Calif.), 1.0 uL pfu-ultra DNA polymerase (Stratagene) and 39 uL water. This reaction mixture was placed in a thin well 200 uL tube for the PCR reaction in a DNA Thermocycler GeneAmp 2400 (PE Applied Biosystems, Foster city, Calif.). The following conditions were used for performing the PCR reaction. The starting temperature was 94° C. for 2 min. Then 30 heating/cooling cycles were performed. Each cycle consisted of 94° C. for 30 sec, 58° C. for 30 sec, and 68° C. for 1 min and 40 sec. At the completion of the temperature cycling, the samples were kept at 60° C. for 10 min more, and then held awaiting sample recovery at 4° C.

The PCR product was partially purified using a QIAquik PCR purification kit (Qiagen, cat #28106) and digested by HindIII and SacI, then gel purified using the protocol as described above. The digested PCR fragment was ligated into the pBAD-SacI vector digested by the same set of enzymes. The 20 uL ligation reaction contained 1.0 uL T4 DNA ligase (Promega) 2.0 uL of 10× reaction buffer that comes with the T4 DNA ligase, 45 ng of vector and 45 ng of insert and deionized water. The reaction was incubated at 16° C. overnight in an Eppendorf thermal cycler (Eppendorf North America, Westbury, N.Y.).

Two uL of the ligation product was transformed into E. coli TOP10 electro-competent cells (Invitrogen), using a BioRAD Gene Pulser II (Bio-Rad Laboratories Inc., Hercules, Calif.). The transformed clones were selected on agar plates containing the LB medium and 100 ug/mL ampicillin. The presence of the E. coli/ilvC gene insert in the clone was confirmed by SacI digestion and DNA sequencing using primers SEQ ID Nos: 17-22. The construct with the ilvC gene insert was named pBAD-K12-ilvC

Preparation of Strains for Analysis of KARI Expression

Plasmids of the above pBAD-K12-ilvC construct and pTrc99A-ilvC, both in TOP10 host strain, were prepared from 3 mL of overnight culture in the LB medium containing 100 ug/mL ampicillin using Qiaprep spin miniprep kit (Qiagen, Valencia Calif., catalogue # 27106) following manufacturer's instructions. One uL of pBAD-K12-ilvC and one uL of pTrc99A-ilvC were transformed separately to E. coli Bw25113 (ΔilvC) electro-competent cells using a Bio RAD Gene Pulser II (Bio-Rad Laboratories Inc, Hercules, Calif.) by following the manufacturer's directions. The transformed cells were streaked onto agar plates containing the LB medium plus 100 ug/mL ampicillin and incubated overnight at 37° C. Colonies from these plates were used for preparation of cell free extracts.

Preparation of Cell Free Extract

Cells containing pBAD-K12-ilvC and pTrc99A-ilvC were grown in 3.0 mL of the LB medium containing 100 ug/mL ampicillin and inducer 0.02% (w/v) arabinose and 1 mM Isopropyl β-D-1-thiogalactopyranoside (IPTG) respectively, at 37° C. while shaking at 250 rpm. The cells were harvested by centrifugation at 6000×g for 5 min at 22.5° C., cell pellets were resuspended in 300 uL of 100 mM HEPES buffer (pH7.5) in a 1.5 mL micro-centrifuge tube, placed in a water bath filled with 40% water and 60% ice (by volume), and sonicated for 2-3 min (3.0 sec bursts at 1.0 force followed by 3.0 sec rest) using a Misonix 300 sonicator (Misonix, Farmingdale N.Y.). The cell debris was removed by centrifugation (Eppendorf micro-centrifuge, model 5415D, at 9300×g for 5 min at 22.5° C.).

Alternatively cell extracts were prepared using the detergent based protein extraction reagent BugBuster master mix (Novagen, catalogue# 71456). The cell pellets from 3.0 mL of cultures were resuspended in 300 uL of BugBuster master mix and incubated at room temperature for 20 min. The cell debris was removed by centrifugation (Eppendorff micro-centrifuge model 5415D) at 9300×g at 22.5° C. for 5 min.

Protein Quantification

The total protein concentration in samples was measured by the Bradford Coomassie Assay (BCA) using Coomassie Plus (Pierce #23238, Rockford, Ill.). The samples and protein standards (Bovine Serum Albumin, BSA) were set up in a 96-well microplate following the manufacturer's protocol. The concentration of protein was measured following absorbance at 595 nm using a SpectraMax plate reader (Molecular Devices Corporation, Sunnyvale, Calif.).

KARI Enzyme Assay Protocol

The assay substrate, (R,S)-acetolactate, was synthesized as described by Aulabaugh and Schloss (Aulabaugh and Schloss, Biochemistry, 29, 2824-2830, 1990): 1.0 g of 2-acetoxy-2-methyl-3-oxobutyric acid ethyl ester (Aldrich, Milwaukee, Wis.) was mixed with 10 mL 1.0 M NaOH and stirred at room temperature. When the solution pH became neutral, additional NaOH was slowly added to maintain the pH ˜8.0. All other chemicals used in the assay were purchased from Sigma.

The enzymatic conversion of acetolactate to 2,3-dihydroxyiso-valerate by KARI was followed by measuring the disappearance of the cofactor, NADPH, from the reaction at 340 nm using a spectrophotometer (Agilent Technologies, Santa Clara, Calif.). The activity was calculated using the molar extinction coefficient of 6220 M⁻¹ cm⁻¹ for NADPH. The stock solutions used were: 100 mM HEPES-potassium salt, adjusted by HCl/KOH to pH 7.5; 1.0 M MgCl₂; 20 mM NADPH and 90 mM acetolactate. The 40 mL reaction buffer mix stock containing 100 mM HEPES stock and 400 uL MgCl₂ stock.

The reaction buffer (194 uL) was mixed with NADPH (2.0 uL) stock and cell extract (2.0 uL) in a plastic disposable cuvette (Eppendorf UVette, Eppendorf AG, Hamburg, Germany) and the absorbance at 340 nm at 22.5° C. was recorded for 20 seconds. Initial A₃₄₀ was usually ˜0.9-1.0. Then acetolactate (2.0 uL) was added to the cuvette to start the reaction. The final concentration of ingredients in the assay was: 100 mM potassium HEPES at pH7.5, 10 mM MgCl₂, 200 uM NADPH and 900 uM acetolactate. This solution was mixed thoroughly and its absorbance at 340 nm for additional 80 sec was recorded. The KARI activity reported here is defined as μmole of NADPH consumed per min per mg of total protein in cell extracts. The results of protein concentrations and KARI activities in cell extracts prepared from E. coli Bw25113 (ΔilvC) cells transformed with pBAD-K12-ilvC plasmids and ptrc99A-ilvC plasmids are shown in Table 4. Two cell extract samples were prepared for the pBAD-K12-ilvC construct, one by sonication the other using the BugBuster. The cell extract sample for pTrc99A-ilvC construct was prepared by using the BugBuster. These analyses showed that the KARI protein was expressed at a higher level in the cells containing pBAD-K12-ilvC plasmids than those containing pTrc99A-ilvC, however, enzyme specific activities in the cell extract samples prepared by two different methods were not significantly different. E. coli strain Bw25113 transformed with pBAD-HisB (Invitrogen) was used as the negative control. The rate of NADPH consumption in the negative control was extremely low (about 1% to 2% of the consumption rate measured for those containing the pBAD-K12-ilvC gene).

TABLE 4 KARI and Total Protein Concentration in Clones CONTAINING ilvC GENE KARI Activity umole/min/mg Clones total protein (μg/ml) total protein BW25113(ΔilvC)- 8007 0.16 ptrc99A-ilvC- Bugbuster BW25113(ΔilvC)- 9707 0.83 pBAD-K12-ilvC- sonication BW25113(ΔilvC)- 4595 0.78 pBAD-K12-ilvC- BugBuster

Example 2 Identification of KARI with High Specific Activity Enzyme from Various Microorganisms

The purpose of this Example is to describe how to identify microorganisms that contain KARI enzymes with high specific activity.

It was hypothesized that those KARI-containing organisms with faster doubling times than E. coli, during growth in a minimal medium, will contain highly active KARI enzymes. Three microorganisms, Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PAO1), Pseudomonas fluorescens (PF5), and Vibrio cholerae (N16961), were identified with faster doubling times than E. coli when grown in the M9 minimal medium (See below). Genomic DNA preparations of these organisms are commercially available. Table 5 shows the doubling times of these organisms compared to E. coli following growth in the minimal M9 medium.

TABLE 5 DOUBLING TIMES OF STRAINS TESTED DURING GROWTH IN THE M9 MEDIUM Doubling time in M9 Organism medium Reference E. coli 55-60 min   1 V. cholerae (N16961) 45 min 3 P. aeruginosa (PAO1) 42 min 2 P. fluorescens (PF5) 38 min 2 REFERENCES 1. Neidhardt, FC, et al. J, Bacteriol. 119, 736-747, 1974. 2. Brinkman FSL, et al. J. Bacteriol. 181, 4746-4754, 1999. 3. Silva AJ and Benitez JA, J. Bacteriol. 188, 794-800, 2006.

As stated above, KARI enzymes have been grouped in different classes. The Pseudomonas PF5 and PAO1 enzymes belong to the class I KARI group, which is the largest group in the family, while the E. coli and V. Cholerae enzymes belong to the class II bacterial KARI group.

The purified genomic DNAs of P. aeruginosa (PAO1, ATCC 47085), and P. fluorescens (PF5, ATCC BAA-477) were purchased from ATCC (American Type Culture Collection, 10801 University Blvd, Manassas, Va.). The genomic DNA from each organism (10 ug each) was rehydrated in 100 uL of 10 mM Tris-HCl, pH 8.5 for use in a PCR reaction. The following pairs of primers, with SacI site attached to the forward primers (SEQ ID Nos: 23 and 25) and HindIII site attached to the reverse primers (SEQ ID Nos: 24 and 26) were used to amplify the ilvC gene coding regions from the genomic DNAs of PAO1 and PF5 by PCR using high fidelity pfu-ultra DNA polymerase (Stratagene). The primers were designed based the publically available (GeneBank) sequences of PF5 and PAO1 ilvC genes for these organisms.

Each 50 uL PCR reaction contained 1.0 uL of genomic DNA and 1.0 uL each of 10 μmol/uL of forward and reverse primers for the respective genes.

The PCR reactions were carried out in an Eppendorf master cyclers gradient (Eppendorf North America, Westbury, N.Y.) using the following reaction conditions. The starting temperature was 95° C. for 2 min. Then 5 heating/cooling cycles were performed. Each cycle consisted of 95° C. for 30 sec, 55° C. for 30 sec, and 72° C. for 1 min and 30 sec. Then 25 further heating/cooling cycles were performed. Each of these cycles consisted of 95° C. for 30 sec, 65° C. for 30 sec, and 72° C. for 1.0 min and 30 sec. At the completion of these temperature cycles, the samples were kept at 72° C. for 10 min more, and then held awaiting sample recovery at 4° C.

The resulting PCR fragments were digested by HindIII and SacI, cloned into the pBAD-SacI expression vector, and transformed into the ilvC-knockout strain BW25113(ΔilvC) using procedures described in Example I. Positive clones were identified by restriction enzyme digestion and validated by full length DNA sequencing using primers, SEQ ID No: 21 (pBAD-eF1), SEQ ID No: 22 (PALPK-R1), SEQ ID No: 27 (PF5-S-F2), and SEQ ID No: 28 (PF5-S-R2): The resulting strains were named BW25113(ΔilvC)-PAO1-ilvC and BW25113(ΔilvC)-PF5-ilvC.

The V. cholerae VC0162 gene coding region was codon optimized for E. coli expression, based on the known protein sequence (Accession NP_(—)229819.1) and prepared by synthetic custom gene synthesis (DNA 2.0, Inc. Menlo Park, Calif.). It was prepared with SacI and HindIII sites attached to the ends of the gene. This DNA fragment was also cloned into the pBAD-SacI expression vector using SacI and HindIII restriction sites and transformed into the ilvC-knockout strain BW25113(ΔilvC). The resulting strain was named BW25113(ΔilvC)-VCopt-VC0162. The sequence of the codon-optimized VC0162 is given as SEQ ID No: 30.

Protein and KARI Activity Assays from K12, PAO1, PF5 and VC Strains

Cell free extracts of strains BW25113(ΔilvC)-K12-ilvC, BW25113(ΔilvC)-PAO1-ilvC. BW25113(ΔilvC)-PF5-ilvC and BW25113(ΔilvC)-VCopt-VC0162 all expressing the KARI enzyme were prepared using BugBuster as described in Example 1. The KARI assay was performed using 188 uL of the reaction buffer, 2.0 uL of 20 mM NADPH stock, 5.0 uL of 20% cell extract diluted in assay buffer and 5.0 uL of 90 mM actolactate. The final assay solution used in this example therefore consisted of enzyme, 100 mM potassium-HEPES, 10 mM MgCl₂, 200 uM NADPH and 2.25 mM acetolactate.

Table 6 shows KARI specific activities of four different organisms grown overnight in the presence of 0.02% (w/v) of arabinose as the inducer. The amount of total protein in the cell extract and the KARI activity were measured as described above. As outlined in Table 6, the KARI enzymes from the organisms identified with faster doubling times when grown in a minimal medium (Table 5) all have higher specific activity than the KARI from E. coli. Each of the extracts had approximately equal levels of expression of the KARI protein as estimated by SDS-PAGE (data not shown). These results support the hypothesis that the doubling time during growth in minimal media can be used as a means to identify KARI enzymes with higher specific activity.

TABLE 6 COMPARISON OF KARI SPECIFIC ACTIVITIES FROM DIFFERENT ORGANISMS total KARI specific protein in activity MW KARI cell extract umol/min/mg strain (KDa) class ug/ml total protein BW25113(ΔilvC)- 54 II 6693 0.72 K12-ilvC BW25113(ΔilvC)-VC- 54 II 6730 1.1 opt-VC0162 BW25113(ΔilvC)- 36 I 4988 1.2 PAO1-ilvC BW25113(ΔilvC)- 36 I 7671 1.8 PF5-ilvC

Example 3 Analysis of Specific Activity of Purified K12-KARI and the PF5-KARI

To better resolve increases in KARI specific activity observed with crude cell extracts in Example 2, K12-KARI and PF5-KARI were purified to homogeneity to allow accurate quantification of the concentration of individual proteins and determine specific activity of the purified KARI enzymes.

Purification of K12-KARI and PF5-KARI

Both K12-KARI and PF5-KARI were purified using the weak anion-exchange spin column, Vivapure IEX D, miniH (Vivascience A G, Hannover, Germany), followed by concentration in a Microcon device with 100 KDa molecular weight cutoff (YM100, Millpore, Bedford, Mass.). The purification procedure was carried out at room temperature (22.5° C.).

Stock solutions used in the anion-exchange spin column were: 100 mM potassium-HEPES at pH 7.0, 1.0 M MgCl₂, 250 mM EDTA, 10% Brij35 and 2 M KCl. Wash buffer (BufferA) was made by adding 5.0 mL of 100 mM HEPES stock to 15 mL water with the addition of 50 uL MgCl₂ stock, 20 uL EDTA stock and 10 uL of 10% Brij35. The elution buffer #1 (Buffer B) was made by adding 5.0 ml of 100 mM HEPES, 2.0 mL of KCl stock to 13 mL water with the addition of 50 ul MgCl₂ stock, 20 uL EDTA stock and 10 uL of 10% Brij35. Elution buffer #2 (Buffer C) was made by adding 5 mL of 100 mM HEPES stock, 5.0 mL of KCl stock to 10 mL water with the addition of 50 uL MgCl₂ stock, 20 uL EDTA stock and 10 uL of 10% Brij35. The final KCl concentration in Buffer B is about 200 mM and about 500 mM in Buffer C.

Cell free extracts of strains BW25113(ΔilvC)-K12-ilvC and BW25113(ΔilvC)-PF5-ilvC were prepared using BugBuster as described in Example 1. To prepare the dilute cell extract for loading into the Vivapure IEX D columns, 600 uL of double deionized water was added to 200 uL of the extract.

Vivapure IEX D columns were first washed with 400 uL of buffer A by centrifugation (Eppendorf micro-centrifuge model 5415D) at 2000×g for 5 min. An identical equipment and process was used in the entire Vivapure IEX D purification procedure. The dilute cell extract (described above) was loaded onto the column and centrifuged in two batches of 400 uL each. The column was then washed (x2) with 400 uL of buffer A. For PF5-KARI sample, 400 uL of buffer B was loaded to elute the enzyme from the column into a collection tube. For K12-KARI sample, 400 uL of buffer C was used instead.

Microcon YM100 devices were first washed with 400 uL of deionized water by centrifugation (Eppendorf micro-centrifuge model 5415D) at 13800×g for 5 min. The sample collected from the Vivapure IEX D purification was then loaded and centrifuged at 13800×g for 4 min. The flow-though was discarded and 400 uL of buffer B was added to the sample chamber and centrifuged at 13800×g for 4 min. The wash procedure was repeated (x2) before 200 uL of buffer B was added to the sample chamber. The sample chamber was inverted to a clean collection tube and centrifuged at 5000×g for 2 min to collect the purified sample.

The purity of each purified KARI sample was validated by capillary-electrophoresis (Agilent 2100 Bioanalyzer, Agilent Technology, Santa Clara, Calif.). Samples were prepared using the Protein 230 reagent kit and applied to a Protein Labchip (supplied with the reagent kits) following the manufacturer's instruction and analyzed by the Bioanalyzer. A single peak with little background was observed on the electrogram for each purified sample.

Protein Quantification of Purified KARI Samples

The UV absorption measurement of the purified KARI samples at 280 nm was performed using a spectrophotometer (Agilent Technology, Santa Clara, Calif.) and 1 cm path length disposable plastic cuvettes (UVette, eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany) to quantify the amount of KARI in the purified samples. The extinction coefficients at 280 nm for PF5-KAR1 (0.73 for 1 mg/mL), and K12-KARI (0.98 for 1 mg/mL) were predicted by the program Protparam available on ExPASy web site (Pace, C. N., et al., Protein Sci. 11, 2411-2423, 1995). The purified sample was diluted to 20% (v/v) in buffer B for the UV absorption measurement. The A₂₈₀ for the diluted PF5-KARI sample was 0.41 and for the diluted K12-KARI was 0.36.

Activity Assay for Purified KAR1

The assay condition used in this example was the same as in Example 2, except that 5 uL of 20% (v/v) purified sample was used instead of cell extract. The protein concentrations of the purified samples and their specific activities are shown in Table 7. The specific activity of purified PF5-KARI, the fastest grower tested, was twice the specific activity of K12-KARI. These results are consistent with the data obtained using crude preparations of these two enzymes in Example 2 thus providing further support for the hypothesis that the doubling time during growth in minimal media can be used as a means to identify KARI enzymes with higher specific activity compared to the E. coli enzyme.

TABLE 7 CONCENTRATION AND SPECIFIC ACTIVITY OF KARI IN E. COLI AND PSEUDOMONAS STRAINS KARI concentration Specific activity Sample (mg/ml) umol/min/mg KARI K12-KARI 1.85 1.1 PF5-KARI 2.80 2.2 

1. A method for conversion of acetolactate to dihydroxy-isovalerate comprising: a) providing a microbial host cell comprising genetic construct encoding a polypeptide having ketol-acid reductoisomerase specific activity greater than that of the specific activity of an E. coli ketol-acid reductoisomerase; and b) contacting the host cell of (a) with acetolactate wherein 2,3-dihydroxy-isovalerate is produced.
 2. A method according to claim 1 wherein the genetic construct encodes a polypeptide having ketol-acid reductoisomerase specific activity of greater than 1.1 μmoles/min/mg based on purified protein as measured by the NADPH consumption assay, run under the following conditions: a) pH of about 7.5; b) a temperature of about 22.5° C.; and c) greater than about 10 mM potassium
 3. A method for the production of isobutanol comprising: a) providing a recombinant microbial host cell comprising the following genetic constructs: 1) at least one genetic construct encoding an acetolactate synthase enzyme of the conversion of pyruvate to acetolactate (pathway step a); 2) at least one genetic construct encoding a ketol-acid reductoisomerase enzyme specific activity of greater than 1.1 μmoles/min/mg based on purified protein as measured by the NADPH consumption assay, run under the following conditions: i) pH of about 7.5; ii) a temperature of about 22.5° C.; and iii) greater than about 10 mM potassium for the conversion of (S)-acetolactate to 2,3-dihydroxyisovalerate, (pathway step b); 3) at least one genetic construct encoding an acetohydroxy acid dehydratase for the conversion of 2,3-dihydroxyisovalerate to α-ketoisovalerate, (pathway step c); 4) at least one genetic construct encoding a branched-chain keto acid decarboxylase, of the conversion of α-ketoisovalerate to isobutyraldehyde, (pathway step d); 5) at least one genetic construct encoding a branched-chain alcohol dehydrogenase for the conversion of isobutyraldehyde to isobutanol (pathway step e); and b) growing the host cell of (a) under conditions where iso-butanol is produced.
 4. A method according to any of claims 1-3 wherein the at least one genetic construct encoding a polypeptide having Ketol-acid reductoisomerase activity is isolated from Pseudomonas.
 5. A method according to any of claims 1-3 wherein the host cell is selected from the group consisting of: a bacterium, a cyanobacterium, a filamentous fungus and a yeast.
 6. A method according to claim 4 wherein the host cell is a member of a genus selected from the group consisting of Clostridium, Zymomonas, Escherichia, Salmonella, Rhodococcus, Pseudomonas, Bacillus, Lactobacillus, Enterococcus, Alcaligenes, Klebsiella, Paenibacillus, Arthrobacter, Corynebacterium, Brevibacterium, Pichia, Candida, Hansenula, Vibrio and Saccharomyces.
 7. A method according to claim 6 wherein the host cell is Escherichia coli.
 8. A method according to claim 6 wherein the cell is Lactobacillus plantarum.
 9. A method according to claim 6 wherein the cell is Saccharomyces cerevisiae.
 10. A method according to claim 3 wherein the acetolactate synthase has an amino acid sequence as set forth in SEQ ID NO:2.
 11. A method according to claim and of claims 1-3 wherein the polypeptide having ketol-acid reductoisomerase activity has an amino acid sequence selected from the group consisting of, SEQ ID NO:34, SEQ ID NO:35, and SEQ ID NO:36.
 12. A method according to claim 3 wherein the acetohydroxy acid dehydratase activity has an amino acid sequence as set forth in SEQ ID NO:6.
 13. A method according to claim 3 wherein the branched-chain alcohol dehydrogenase has an amino acid sequence as set forth in SEQ ID NO:10.
 14. A method according to claim 3 wherein the branched-chain α-keto acid decarboxylase has an amino acid sequence as set forth in SEQ ID NO:8.
 15. A recombinant host cell comprising a ketol-acid reductoisomerase enzyme having a specific activity greater than the specific activity of an E. coli ketol-acid reductoisomerase.
 16. The recombinant host cell of claim 15 wherein the ketol-acid reductoisomerase enzyme has a specific activity of greater than 1.1 μmoles/min/mg based on purified protein as measured by the NADPH consumption assay, run under the following conditions: a) pH of about 7.5; b) a temperature of about 22.5° C.; and c) greater than about 10 mM potassium.
 17. A method for the identification and isolation of a genetic construct encoding a ketol-acid reductoisomerase enzyme having a specific activity of greater than 1.1 μmoles/min/mg based on purified protein as measured by the NADPH consumption assay, run under the following conditions: i) pH of about 7.5; ii) a temperature of about 22.5° C.; and iii) greater than about 10 mM potassium; comprising the steps of: a) identifying bacterial species having a doubling time shorter than that of E. coli when grown in M9 minimal medium; b) screening the bacterial species of (a) for ketol-acid reductoisomerase activity to identify active bacterial species; c) probing the genomic DNA of the active bacterial species of (b) with nucleic acid sequences having homology to genetic constructs known to encode a ketol-acid reductoisomerase to identify and isolate genetic constructs encoding a ketol-acid reductoisomerase from said active bacterial species; and d) amplifying and expressing the genetic constructs encoding a ketol-acid reductoisomerase from said active bacterial species; and e) screening the expressed genetic constructs of step (d) for those having a specific activity of greater than 1.1 μmoles/min/mg based on purified protein as measured by the NADPH consumption assay, run under the following conditions: i) pH of about 7.5; ii) a temperature of about 22.5° C.; and iii) greater than about 10 mM potassium.
 18. A method according to claim 17 wherein said active bacterial species are selected from the group consisting of Clostridium, Zymomonas, Escherichia, Salmonella, Rhodococcus, Pseudomonas, Bacillus, Vibrio, Lactobacillus, Enterococcus, Alcaligenes, Klebsiella, Paenibacillus, Arthrobacter, Corynebacterium, and Brevibacterium.
 19. A method according to claim 17 wherein the doubling time of step (a) is equal to or less than 80% of the doubling time of E. coli when grown in M9 minimal medium. 